By increasingly openly playing the card of an exit without agreement from the European Union on 31 October, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson began, on Wednesday 21 August, a series of meetings with European leaders ahead of the G7 Biarritz summit, which will take place from 24 to 26 August.
The new British leader met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday in Berlin. He will travel to Paris on Thursday 22 August and will meet with French President Emmanuel Macron. At these meetings, he is expected to argue that he wants an agreement with the EU for an orderly Brexit at the end of October, but that, without a change in the Twenty-Seven, his country is actively preparing for a radical exit, without further extension of the negotiating deadlines.
Earlier this week, the British Prime Minister set the new terms of the discussions with the EU on Brexit in a letter to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, on Monday 19 August. In it, he reiterated his request to the 27 Member States to abolish the Irish “backstop”, which he considered “undemocratic” and likely to force the United Kingdom indefinitely into a customs union with the EU.
In exchange for this safety net, Mr Johnson promises to put in place alternative arrangements with the same objective of avoiding any physical infrastructure for the control of goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland. And he calls on Europeans to trust the United Kingdom regarding the control of goods destined to enter European territory.
On Tuesday 20 August, the British Government also announced that British diplomats will no longer take part, as of 1 September, in the majority of meetings and configurations of the EU Council, with the exception of meetings of particular interest for the future of the United Kingdom.
These two letters were received rather coldly by the EU. For Mr Tusk, those “against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support reestablishing a border. Even if they do not admit it”, he added via Twitter. The two men will meet on Sunday 25 August in Biarritz for a bilateral meeting on the margins of the G7 summit.
In Biarritz, a sign of an emerging rivalry between the EU and the United Kingdom, Mr Johnson could even survey his non-European partners on the possibility of a British candidacy for the IMF presidency (see other news).
For its part, the Commission said on Wednesday 21 August that it had taken note of the instructions given to British diplomats to stop attending most of the EU Council's working meetings. This instruction, said Natasha Bertaud, the institution's spokesperson, is “in line” with the United Kingdom's commitments to respect the principle of sincere cooperation and not to hinder the EU's work, principles set out in the conclusions of the European Council of 10 April.
The European Commission has also taken it for granted that the British Prime Minister should meet with European leaders. But this does not affect the fact that the Twenty-Seven speak with “one voice” on Brexit, the spokesperson added. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)