After an informal summit in Salzburg, described by the British press as a real humiliation (see EUROPE 12100), British Prime Minister Theresa May answered back during a surprise televised speech on Friday 21 September, during which she asked the other 27 EU member states for respect and deplored the fact that the negotiations are "at in impasse".
May seemed to attack European Council President Donald Tusk more directly, who despite saying he was "optimistic" about the possibility of an agreement in October, did not explain the reasons for the European rejection of the Chequers white paper published on 12 July (see EUROPE 12061).
It is now for the EU to make counter-proposals, May said. "It is not acceptable to simply reject the other side’s proposals", she said. She had met Tusk privately on Thursday morning.
More generally, May gave the feeling of being trapped by the EU a few days from her Conservative Party conference. The EU continues "to offer us two options", including staying in the European Economic Area and the Customs Union, she said. This would mean that the country would have to bend to all European rules, like those on migration, she said, convinced that such an outcome would not respect the referendum of June 2016 that was won by those supporting Brexit.
The second option, she continued, is a basic free trade agreement with border controls and a Northern Ireland that would remain permanently in the European area and separated from the rest of the UK with the appearance of a border in the Irish Sea, she said.
The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has nevertheless already said that controls could be made in a relatively flexible way.
May reiterated that no British prime minister would ever be able to accept this option. In December 2016, May accepted the principle of a backstop and a temporary alignment of Northern Ireland with the European rules in order to avoid a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, until a lasting solution was found in the framework of the future relationship between the EU and her country.
But the EU rejects the new relationship that May proposes via the white paper. She repeated on Friday that the Chequers plan, which proposes a common area for goods and services, is the only viable solution.
She again repeated her desire for an agreement to be found with the EU, but no deal is better than a bad deal, she insisted.
Barnier, who could meet his British counterpart Dominic Raab next week, had not planned to respond to May's surprise speech immediately afterwards. The Commission simply stated that its position had not changed and that it still wanted to work "constructively" with London to find an agreement. However, "on substance", May's speech "changes nothing", EUROPE was told in Brussels on Friday afternoon. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)