It was a week of fish fights, storm clouds and set-piece speeches as the ground was laid for a second round of Brexit talks.
Fish fight
Brussels woke up to the announcement last weekend that the UK was leaving the London Convention, an arcane 1964 fisheries agreement between 13 countries, half of them outside the then-European Economic Community.
“No change”, tweeted EU lead Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier at the news, insisting that the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, which dates back to the 1970s (as does the UK’s EU accession), had superseded it.
But the move by British environment minister and arch-Brexiteer Michael Gove had achieved its aim, to show that Britain was “taking back control” from Brussels. It took place just a year after former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage led a flotilla of fishing boats up the Thames, calling for the same.
It will not have any immediate effect, as departing states are required to give two years’ notice (in writing) before they can leave. That would mean summer 2019, at which time the UK would already be out of the EU, and possibly the CFP. However, the UN’s convention on the law of the sea, an international agreement signed by around 170 countries, will continue to apply, leaving a question mark hanging over EU fisheries policy and access to British waters. It’s a particularly complicated situation for France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Belgium (and to an extent, Germany), which rely the most on UK waters for fish.
Storm clouds
It was waters of a different kind that Mr Barnier tried to calm later in the week when he travelled to the Belgian port of Zeebruggee to talk to industry, trade unionists and local government representatives fearful about the effects of Brexit.
The UK is Belgium’s fourth-largest export destination, with vehicles making up almost a third of the total. Zeebrugge port is the largest hub for new cars in the world, handling 2.7 million units in 2016, around half of them en route to or from the UK. And of the 38 million tonnes of goods it handled in 2016 overall, 45pc passed through the UK.
As storm clouds gathered overhead, Mr Barnier told reporters he wanted to “listen and understand the reality” of Brexit for people and said he hoped to agree a “balanced trade deal” with the UK after Brexit. But in a speech to the European Economic and Social Committee just hours before, he had issued a stark warning about the possibility of failing to agree a divorce deal with the UK.
“We want to be ready for all eventualities, including ‘no deal’, a possibility that has been mentioned again recently by several British ministers”, Mr Barnier said in his speech, predicting tariffs of between 10 and 20 percent on British vehicle, meat and alcohol exports in the event Britain crashed out of the bloc in 2019 and had to operate under World Trade Organisation rules.
Even if the EU and UK manage to do a divorce deal, Mr Barnier said a “hard” exit - where the UK leaves both the single market and customs union - would involve “friction” on trade and have “serious consequences” for both sides, particularly the UK.
“There will of course be consequences from Brexit. I hope they will be as limited as possible”, Mr Barnier told reporters in Zeebrugge, adding that the EU “will find solutions” to deal with the Irish border, where customs checks would be the most politically and economically sensitive.
Irish ideas
The Irish Senate’s committee on Brexit published a report this week suggesting the establishment of a common trading area on the island of Ireland as part of a future EU-UK trade deal. The report said pre-clearance of goods, where trucks could pass from the Republic of Ireland to Northern Ireland without incurring duties or checks, or a system of pre-registering loads online and tracking them using GPS or number plate recognition (as on the Swedish-Norwegian border) could be a possible solution.
Irish issues are being dealt with separately in Brexit talks, by Mr Barnier’s deputy negotiator Sabine Weyand, who is in direct contact with her counterpart in the UK, Olly Robbins (instead of in working groups like those set up for citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and other “separation issues” such as nuclear energy).
But Mr Barnier would not be drawn on whether the EU was looking into particular solutions for Ireland. “Don’t ask me to tell you now when the negotiations have only just started - the solutions that we will come up with. We will find solutions”, Mr Barnier said in Zeebrugge.
Brexit talks are to resume on 17 July.