Brexit negotiators continued to meet all summer, but if you were away and are only tuning back in now, don’t worry - you didn’t miss much.
To be fair to the hardworking civil servants of Whitehall and Berlaymont, they have agreed 80% of the EU-UK exit treaty. Aside from the deals on citizens’ rights and money reached in the first phase of talks, negotiators made progress during the summer on how to protect data and exchange police and criminal information during the 2019-21 transition period.
But there remain the twin problems of Ireland and governance, which are no closer to being solved. Added to that is a third issue which reared its head over the summer: geographical indications. UK negotiators now say they may not recognise specialty EU produce such as Feta or Champagne after Brexit, which diplomats see as a tactic to bargain for better single market access.
The exit treaty and transition period are still the EU’s number one priorities, with lead negotiator Michel Barnier playing down talks on the future. “We have not started negotiations on the future relationship,” he told a UK parliament committee in Brussels this week. And while he meant the remark as a technical one (you can’t start trade talks with the EU until you leave the EU), there is truth in it in practice.
While the UK continues its internecine struggle over what kind of future trade relationship it wants with the EU, the bloc has not changed the offer it made in March: a tariff-free trade deal with flanking agreements on things like aviation, research, crime and defence. EU leaders and Commission negotiators have been clear that they will not move unless the UK opts back in to either the single market or customs union, or both - despite positive statements during the summer from French president Emmanuel Macron.
This stance - which the UK says is evidence of the EU’s “inflexibility” - was made even more plain by Mr Barnier during his meeting with UK parliament committee. He made clear the EU’s fears about unfair competition from a less-regulated post-Brexit Britain and said only a “Norway-plus” model would secure the kind of market access the UK wants.
“What we are defending is the economic interests of our businesses and citizens”, Mr Barnier said. For him, the UK’s plan - for a free trade area in goods and a special customs arrangement - “would weaken and would lead to the unravelling of the single market”. The transcript of the meeting is worth a read, also for deputy lead negotiator Sabine Weyand’s concise examples of why splitting the single market is a problem for the bloc.
It is difficult to see any progress being made on this issue, despite high hopes for a breakthrough at an informal summit of EU leaders in Salzburg later this month. The two sides are still speaking different languages. And nowhere is this more plain than in discussions about the Irish border.
In a letter to Remain peer Lord Adonis this week, Tory Brexiteer-in-chief Jacob Rees-Mogg calls the EU a “failing economic model” and says the UK is being “bullied” by the bloc over the Irish border. It is an accusation that was reportedly levelled - in a more polite way - by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab when he met with Mr Barnier last week (according to the Daily Telegraph) (see EUROPE 12086).
The EU, the Brexiteer argument goes, is forcing Ireland to impose border controls on its frontier with Northern Ireland, when London has offered to leave its side of the border open.
But the argument misses the point. Quite aside from its legal obligations as a member of the EU and the World Trade Organization, the UK is asking Ireland to turn away from global trade in favour of trade dependence on its near neighbour. It’s the opposite of the UK’s ‘Global Britain’ strategy and doesn’t really go down well in a country that is approaching its 100th anniversary of independence.
So, it looks like we are in for a political crisis this season, and according to several sources The B-Word has been bothering over the summer. Beware the winter of Brexit discontent. (Sarah Collins)