The EU is still not convinced by the UK’s post-Brexit customs plan. Both sides hope a summer break will lead to a breakthrough, rather than a breakdown.
At least the optics are better than they were. UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has now been to Brussels twice in two weeks, more than his predecessor David Davis had in six months (see EUROPE 12071, 12066). There is a “new dynamic” in the talks, one EU diplomat said, although “nobody is cheering yet”.
This week’s negotiations were long and arduous, including a six-hour discussion on how to avoid a new customs border on the island of Ireland.
“The EU has offered a solution that is legally and practically workable, and if that’s not OK for the UK, they will have to come up with another solution, otherwise we will have to go back to the drawing board,” the diplomat explained.
MEPs are annoyed, warning the UK that any further backtracking on the border could “undermine trust and sabotage negotiations”.
“The UK Government can no longer postpone coming forward with its own, workable and legally operative proposal,” the Parliament’s Brexit steering group said in a written statement Friday. “We have yet to see a legislative proposal from the UK Government, despite repeated commitments made by Prime Minister May.” MEPs say it will be “impossible” for them to vote on the final withdrawal agreement unless an “all-weather” backstop is in place.
But neither side has yet tabled any new ideas.
The UK is holding to a 7 June proposal for a “temporary customs arrangement”, a time-limited EU-UK customs union that would expire once a free trade deal has been agreed (see EUROPE 12036). The EU says a backstop solution can’t be open-ended and must be Northern Ireland-specific, or else it will be open to legal challenges.
The backdrop to all of this is the UK’s long-term solution - set out in its recent white paper (see EUROPE 12063) - for a future “facilitated customs arrangement” and free trade area for goods and food, which EU negotiators fear will not work, will break up the single market and will not be ready in time.
EU governments “instructed” Mr Barnier to shoot down the idea this week, one diplomat told the B-Word, and that’s what he did.
“The UK wants to take back control of its money, law, and borders,” Mr Barnier said yesterday. “We will respect that. But the EU also wants to keep control of its money, law, and borders. The UK should respect that.”
Mr Barnier has also pleaded for both sides to “de-dramatise” the Irish border, a coded appeal to the UK to stop treating customs checks as a constitutional threat.
Brexit negotiators have given themselves a break until mid-August, by which time they hope to come up with new ideas on both the backstop and on a future customs plan that can satisfy EU lawyers and ardent Brexiteers - including the Democratic Unionist Party, who are adamantly against creating a customs border around the island of Ireland.
School’s out for summer, but Brexit negotiators have still got a lot of homework to do. (Sarah Collins)