The European Parliament’s Committees on International Trade (INTA) and Foreign Affairs (AFET), responsible for drawing up the report to approve the EU’s agreement with the United Kingdom on their future relationship, gave, on Thursday 14 January, a rather positive assessment of these negotiations, which were concluded on 24 December.
The Chairman of the AFET Committee, David McAllister (EPP, Germany), welcomed “an agreement that brings clarity and certainty to both sides”. While the various parliamentary committees have been studying aspects of the agreement all this week in the presence of the European Commission, the Chairman of INTA, Bernd Lange (S&D) from Germany, who had already weighed in on the subject on Monday, reiterated his Committee’s a priori positive opinion. “In principle, INTA members are satisfied” and Parliament’s fears have, on the whole, been taken into account.
Parliament must now decide by 28 February, the date set for the end of the provisional application of the agreement, unless the United Kingdom agrees to extend it until mid-March, as one part of Parliament wishes, anxious to study the agreement carefully.
After a presentation by Clara Martinez Alberola, Michel Barnier’s assistant in the negotiations with London, the MEPs of both committees nevertheless reiterated the slightly more negative points, such as the absence of provisions on foreign and defence policy or London’s withdrawal from the Erasmus programme, as deplored in particular by Luxembourger Christophe Hansens (EPP).
The Chairman of AFET, for his part, raised questions about the separate agreement between the two partners on classified information. In particular, he wondered why Parliament was not involved in this framework, as informing Parliament required the consent of London. Parliament would like a Commission declaration to guarantee Parliament’s information rights, which Mrs Martinez Alberola considered “conceivable”.
On governance in general, the elected representatives criticised the fact that Parliament is not involved in the revision of the agreement and France’s Nathalie Loiseau (Renew Europe) pleaded for a parliamentary committee to monitor the implementation of the agreement. Currently, an EU/UK interparliamentary assembly is planned, but this does not go far enough, according to the Renew Europe MEP.
Clara Martinez Alberola promised Parliament that a permanent information structure would be set up to exchange with and inform Parliament, as was the case throughout the negotiations.
She also revealed at the hearing, in response to a question put to her, that it was the EU that had refused to discuss the asylum and migration provisions that London was asking for. This was not in the Commission’s mandate and “Member States were very divided, with countries not wishing to cooperate with the UK at all” on these issues, she said. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)