The European Parliament will not accept any exit agreement from the United Kingdom that does not include a safety net for Ireland and will only grant a further extension of the period of Article 50 if London fulfils specific conditions, such as holding elections, a referendum, rethinking the whole draft agreement or quite simply if it wants to avoid leaving without an agreement.
This is the message that the European Parliament will deliver next week in a resolution put to the vote on 18 September, its President, David Sassoli, announced on Thursday 12 September. He was speaking after meeting with the EU negotiator for the United Kingdom's orderly exit from the EU, Michel Barnier, who will also be invited to discuss the state of discussions with the United Kingdom with MEPs on Wednesday. On Tuesday 10 September, Michel Barnier also met the European Parliament’s Steering Committee (where Pedro Silva - S&D, Portugal - replaces Roberto Gualtieri, who is now a Minister in the Italian government).
However, at the end of this meeting with the negotiator, the European Parliament’s President indicated that the “signals received” did not suggest that concrete proposals had been made by London. “Unfortunately, the signals we are receiving show that no initiative has been taken to relaunch the debate”, the Italian said.
On Thursday at noon, the Commission said that in turn the British negotiator, David Frost, who comes to Brussels twice a week, had put ideas on “customs” and “manufactured goods” on the table on 11 September.
However, on 12 September, the EU negotiator himself reported that these were still not real concrete alternatives at this stage, he told the British media.
On the European Parliament’s side, the resolution of the EPP, S&D, Renew Europe, Greens/EFA and EUL/NGL groups will be divided into three parts. The first part points out that the withdrawal agreement as negotiated is the best possible agreement, that it is fair, balanced and contains the necessary legal guarantees. Regarding the safety net for Ireland (‘backstop’), the text points out that it should only be applied as a last resort and that the current work on alternative arrangements should be welcomed. However these alternative arrangements can only be valid if they fulfil the ‘backstop’ objective, namely of avoiding any physical infrastructure for checks on the island, respecting the Good Friday Agreement, the principles of North-South cooperation and respecting the integrity of the European single market.
The European Parliament is capable of flexibility, as David Sassoli also said, and would agree to return to a “safety net only for Northern Ireland” and not for the whole United Kingdom, as provided for in the current agreement. This is a return to the original version of the ‘backstop’, which is still to be accepted by London.
The second part of the resolution then addresses an exit without an agreement and the risks involved. The text recalls that this would be entirely attributable to the United Kingdom and that there would be no transition period or “mini-agreements” to mitigate the effects of this exit without an agreement. The third part covers the further extension of the period of Article 50 that the United Kingdom may request, although the Prime Minister Boris Johnson is against this.
There is expected to be a lot of confusion in the event of a ‘no deal’
This resolution comes as the political storm continues in the United Kingdom. After the controversy over the British Parliament's 5-week forced suspension, on Thursday the government was embroiled in a debate on the real consequences of leaving without an agreement. Required by MPs to publish documents on this issue, on Wednesday evening the government published official documents dated 2 August, grouped under the code ‘Operation Yellowhammer’.
One observation is clear, even if the government indicates that this is the “worst case scenario”, the state of preparation of the public and the business sector remains “weak” and the congestion of ports could cause shortages of medicines and food.
About three-quarters of all medicines go through the Channel Tunnel. Short-term disruptions would affect 12 key areas, including water and food supply, health, transport and borders; public unrest was not excluded either.
The plan not to carry out checks at the Irish border would prove to be “perhaps unsustainable, due to significant economic, legal and biosecurity risks”, reported the British media. Not to mention the lack of chemicals for wastewater treatment, which could affect “hundreds of thousands” of people, according to the report.
Link to the document: https://bit.ly/2khwdHq (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)