During a debate on Wednesday, 18 December about the European Summit on 12 and 13 December, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, reiterated her desire for the EU and the United Kingdom to enjoy an “unprecedented partnership”, while highlighting the extremely “challenging” deadlines (for negotiating the future relationship) by which this partnership will have to be created, with a renewed risk of “no deal at the end of 2020” if the two parties do not reach an agreement.
The risk has been heightened by the desire of British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, to include in the text of the draft EU withdrawal agreement a ban on the requirement for another extension of the transition period beyond 31 December 2020. Ursula von der Leyen believes that the United Kingdom would suffer most in this scenario, as the EU will be able to rely on its internal market. She also told British ‘remainer’ MEPs that “we will miss you”.
The EU’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, who will lead the rest of the withdrawal work, also emphasised the very tight timetable for the upcoming negotiations. He warned that, although the EU wants a robust relationship with London, “it won’t be possible to complete everything”. Time will be one constraint. Another constraint will be the “differences between our interests and objectives”, the question that needs to be resolved being “the extent to which the United Kingdom wants to deviate from our regulatory model”. “The level of our ambition” will depend on the answer to this question, said Barnier.
Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, stressed that “unity and transparency” will be the key to the new negotiations, though he does not want to say whether the deadlines will have to be extended this summer when the scheduled update on the discussions is provided. In the meantime, he hoped that the British Parliament would be able to ratify the withdrawal agreement approved in October between London and the EU “as soon as possible”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)