Not much progress in new Brexit talks

EU and Britain’s chief negotiators get off to a slow start as concern mounts that pace will inhibit discussions, set for October, on two sides’ future ties

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said on Thursday no “decisive progress” had been achieved in the third round of Brexit talks and opening talks on the two sides’ future ties in October was doubtful.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said on Thursday no “decisive progress” had been achieved in the third round of Brexit talks, and added that opening talks on the two sides’ future ties in October were doubtful at the current pace.

Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis said the sides “made some concrete progress”, that there was a “high degree of convergence” on the future Irish border and that London would “interrogate rigorously” what it would pay the EU on departure.

Brexit talks have resumed in Brussels more than a year after Britons voted in a referendum to leave the EU.

Despite both the EU and Britain being on a short deadline to deliver a deal, the talks have seen a slow start.

“Over the course of this week, we have made a number of useful clarifications on a number of points, for instance the status of border workers,” Michel Barnier told a joint news conference with Davis after the latest round of talks.

“However, we did not get any decisive progress on any of the principal subjects, even though on the discussion we had about Ireland — that discussion was fruitful.” Barnier scolded London for demanding the “impossible” — including having a say on the EU’s single market rules while being outside of it — in a series of position papers the British government released last week.

He said both sides disagreed again on Thursday on the EU’s demand, firmly rejected by Britain, that the European Court of Justice must be allowed to police the enforcement of rights of EU citizens residing in Britain after Brexit, and vice versa.

Davis reiterated calls from London to move swiftly to talks about a post-Brexit relationship with the EU, saying it affects whatever becomes part of a divorce agreement.

The EU has refused to do that before “sufficient progress” is made on securing the rights of expatriates, imagining a future border between the UK’s province of Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland, and agreeing on an exit bill.

“Our discussions this week have exposed yet again that the UK’s approach is substantially more flexible and pragmatic than that of the EU,” Davis said.

“I remain of the view there is an unavoidable overlap between withdrawal and the future and they cannot be neatly compartmentalised,” he said, reiterating London’s stance that talks on splitting from the EU and forging a new relationship should largely run in parallel.

Barnier said he and Davis remained some distance apart on what Britain should pay on departure to account for previous commitments.

“In July, the UK recognised that it has [financial] obligations beyond the Brexit date,” Barnier said. “But this week, it explained its obligations will be limited to the last payment to the EU budget before departure. Yet we have joint obligations to third partners .... After this week, it’s clear the UK does not feel legally obliged to honour these.…”

The bloc has floated a sum of about €60bn before, which Britain has swiftly dismissed as ridiculously high.

“We are a country, which meets its legal obligations, and we will continue to do so, but these have to be real obligations,” Davis said. Britain was also willing to honour some “moral“obligations beyond the purely legal ones, he said.