Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid insists Brexit will not define her country’s EU presidency, but as talks heat up, it’s becoming clear how difficult a deal will be.
Estonia's focus will be on building EU unity rather than on negotiating Brexit, prime minister Jüri Ratas said. “We have one principle and that is that we want to show that the EU is something positive,” Mr Ratas told reporters in Tallinn this week for the launch of Estonia’s EU presidency.
Estonia has not put in a bid for either the European Medicines Agency (EMA) or the European Banking Authority (EBA), as it hopes to be more of an honest broker in the Brexit talks.
But the complexity of extricating the UK from the EU became even more apparent after the EU published six new position papers on Thursday, on issues ranging from how to deal with goods in transit on Brexit day to requirements for secrecy from British staff serving in EU institutions.
The texts follow previous position papers on citizens (see EUROPE 11816), the financial settlement and nuclear materials.
Separation issues
A quick glance at the position paper on goods shows how complicated a settlement will be.
The paper says goods - including live animals (and their semen and eggs), food and feed, plants, consumer products, pharmaceuticals and chemicals, vehicles and machinery - in transit on the day the UK leaves the EU should be able to enter either jurisdiction as long as they comply with existing European product and import controls.
It means thorough customs checks will have to be carried out, whether ahead of time or on Brexit day, at the point goods enter either jurisdiction.
The paper also says ongoing approvals of medicines or pesticides in the UK on Brexit day will have to be handed over to another EU country to finalise.
The paper on governance pits the EU directly against the UK, which has ruled out a role for the European Court of Justice post-Brexit (see other news). The EU wants to set up institutional arrangements to ensure the divorce deal can be enforced, including a “dispute settlement” system, and is insisting the deal respect the case law and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
And a solution will have to be found for civil and commercial court cases ongoing at Brexit time.
The EU says a solution will need to cover contracts and the enforcement of civil and commercial court judgements, divorce and maintenance payments, bankruptcy filings, small claims and payment orders.
Timeline
The number of issues at stake points to the likelihood of talks stretching out beyond this autumn, the indicative deadline the EU had given for the first phase of divorce talks (focusing on citizens, money, Ireland and the “other separation issues” mentioned above).
The UK wants to move on quickly to talks on a future trade deal, but the EU says “sufficient progress” is needed on these issues first.
Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid warned this week that progress might not come easily.
“During our presidency, I don’t exactly see how we could so quickly go to the discussions about the future of the trade,” Kaljulaid warned.
UK
A second round of talks between the EU and UK will begin on 17 July in Brussels, with preparations already well underway.
On the UK side, British prime minister Theresa May now has a minority government in place, with the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which she said would give the country the “certainty we require as we embark on our departure from the European Union”.
But the DUP deal has shaken negotiations on a power-sharing government in Northern Ireland, with talks now extended to Monday after nationalists and unionists failed to reach a deal by a Thursday afternoon deadline. (Sarah Collins)