Tension did not abate between London and the European Commission on Thursday 10 September after an extraordinary meeting of the Joint Committee provided for in the agreement on an orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (see EUROPE 12556/1).
This meeting did not resolve concerns about the UK’s draft Internal Market Bill.
On the contrary, sent to London, the vice-president of the Maroš Commission Šefčovič, following an interview with his counterpart, Michael Gove, asked the government of Boris Johnson to “withdraw his bill” by “the end of the month”.
A few hours later, the British minister retorted that the British government was not going to “withdraw” the project. He said it could not and would not, Reuters reported.
He said that the Commission could use the legal tools of the withdrawal agreement if the UK government does not back down.
If passed, the British bill “would be an extremely serious violation of the withdrawal agreement and international law”, the vice president added. As a result, the Commission did not accept Michael Gove’s explanations that this bill would seek to protect the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. “On the contrary”, this text puts it in jeopardy, Šefčovič said.
London wants to be able to derogate from certain customs and state aid provisions laid down in a protocol for Northern Ireland which was ratified and entered into force last February. This protocol has been specifically designed to address the issue of the island of Ireland for which no land border is conceivable.
“The full and timely implementation of the withdrawal agreement, including the protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland - which Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government accepted and which the UK Houses of Parliament ratified less than a year ago - is a legal obligation”, said Šefčovič in a statement.
“The EU expects the letter and spirit of this agreement to be fully respected. Violation of the terms of the withdrawal agreement would violate international law, undermine confidence and jeopardise ongoing negotiations on future relations”, the official even pointed out, suggesting that the Commission could suspend its participation in negotiations on future EU-UK relations if the UK text is maintained.
“The withdrawal agreement entered into force on 1 February 2020 and has legal effects under international law. Since that date, neither the EU nor the UK can unilaterally modify, clarify, amend, interpret, ignore or cancel the agreement”, the Vice President said. In addition to a “blatant” violation of the agreement’s provisions on customs legislation and state aid, the UK government would also be in breach of the “good faith obligation under the withdrawal agreement”, as the “Bill undermines the achievement of the objectives of the agreement”.
The damage has already been done: by introducing this bill, the UK has already “seriously damaged trust between the EU and the UK. It is now up to the British government to restore that confidence”, the Vice-President said.
The British Parliament will be debating this bill next week and may make amendments to it.
Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) will take stock next week, as will the General Affairs Council on 22 September.
At this stage, it is a matter of seeing whether this British bill is successful and, until then, to maintain as much as possible “the channel of open discussions” with London, said one diplomatic source. However, she acknowledged that the damage to trust is making the current talks “even more difficult”. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)