EU negotiator: ‘No turning back’ on commitments

European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said Wednesday there will be “no turning back” for Britain on commitments made during an initial divorce deal between the two, after his UK counterpart insisted it was merely a “statement of intent.”

Barnier told legislators at the European Parliament that the negotiations so far have been “extremely complex and extraordinary” but insisted that he had made no concessions to the British side.

UK negotiator David Davis insisted the deal was less than cast in stone.

But Barnier said “progress has been noted and recorded and is going to have to be translated into a legally binding withdrawal agreement” on the EU bill Britain faces, the maintenance of a transparent border between EU Ireland and the UK’s Northern Ireland, and citizens’ rights in each other’s region.

The EU parliament’s chief Brexit official, Guy Verhofstadt, said that Davis was already backtracking after his inflammatory statement of last Sunday.

Verhofstadt said they talked by phone on Tuesday and that Davis “assured me it is absolutely not his intention, not the intention of the UK government, to backtrack on their commitments.

“The best way to secure this is that in the coming weeks we transpose all these commitments into the legal text of a withdrawal agreement,” he said.

Most of the legislature had warm words for the performance of Barnier in running a tight ship during the talks and keeping the 27 remaining EU nations united in their stance.

EU leaders open a two-day summit on Thursday during which they are slated to agree that there has been “sufficient progress” for the talks to move into a second phase and also take in trade relations, a subject Britain wants to open as soon as possible.

European Union Council President Donald Tusk warned Tuesday that it will be a “furious race against time” for the EU and Britain to finish Brexit negotiations by next fall, saying only “moderate progress” has been achieved so far. /