Post-Brexit UK ‘a likely model’
‘CLOSE TO EU, BUT NOT IN THE UNION’ Large non-members like Turkey might mould policies to mirror British.
An EU agreement with Britain on relations after Brexit could serve as a model for other countries that want to be as close as possible to the bloc but are not yet ready to join, Germany’s foreign minister said.
Britain secured the go-ahead from Brussels to start talks on its future relationship with the EU earlier this month, with London saying it aspires to a closer relationship as a former member than that of any other third country.
In an interview with the Funke newspaper group published yesterday, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said such a deal could offer a solution to the puzzle of how the bloc of 27 can manage its ties with two other large non-members.
“I can’t imagine Turkey or Ukraine becoming EU members in the next few years,” he said.
“[But] if we get a smart agreement with Britain regulating relations with Europe after Brexit, that could be a model for other countries – Ukraine and also Turkey.”
Turkey, an EU candidate for decades, already has a customs union with the EU which allows the trade of goods without tariffs.
One possibility would be to offer Ankara a “new, closer form of the customs union”, Gabriel said, although he also said such a project would have to wait for changes in Turkey’s politics.
Thousands of people, including German citizens, have been detained in Turkey since a failed coup in 2016.
An agreement between the EU and Ukraine on a “deep and comprehensive free trade area” formally came into force in September, aimed at allowing free trade of goods, services and capital, and visa-free travel for people for short stays.
Ukraine’s desire for closer ties with the EU was one of the driving forces behind a revolt that toppled a pro-Russian president in 2014, leading Moscow to seize Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and to back pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.
Gabriel’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) is preparing for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives on governing together for another four years. –