Time running out for a Brexit deal

Even though negotiations have just got underway, there are too many issues to be settled in the next 615 days

he Berlaymont Building in Brussels is an architectural monolith that’s somewhat cruciform in shape, has parking for 1,600 cars, easily caters to 3,000 office workers there, and even features a Nordic sauna should the European Union commissioners or any other eurocrat feel the need to relax and refresh.

This 250,000-square-metre office block is ground zero for the European Union. Its edifice pays home to the best — and worst, given that tonnes of asbestos material had to be removed — of 1960s office design. And it’s here, last Monday, that the Brexit negotiations began in earnest with every clock in the Berlaymont complex unconsciously ticking towards March 29, 2019, when the United Kingdom is due to leave the 28-member bloc.

From July 19, there are just 615 days before it’s cheerio to the Brits. And despite that, the British government and its delegation are no closer to knowing what will happen, what they will wake up to on March 30, 2019. If they think that there’s ample time, consider that all the remaining EU27 member-states will need to assess and approve the final divorce agreement — and that could take the early part of 2019 to achieve.

That 615-day deadline is in reality more like 500, and it looms that much larger.

Consider too that there are an estimated 1,000 pieces of regulations and administrative frameworks that must be agreed upon in the fine print of the Brexit negotiations. David Davis, the UK minister responsible for Brexit — he leads the Department for Exiting the EU (DExEU) — and is the point person Prime Minister Theresa May appointed to make sure Britain gets the best deal — was in Brussels on Monday for the start of these crucial talks. He stayed one hour. Davis travelled to the Belgian capital with nearly 100 DExEU officials, who were to get down to work with their European counterparts. Sadly, he and his two senior-most delegates posed for photographs with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his team sitting around a Berlaymont office table. On the European side, there were stacks of papers clutched by the eurocrats; on the UK side, there was nothing, just Davis and his empty-handed cohorts clutching at straws.

In fairness, as Barnier pointed out, the main work is being done by more junior officials. That may be fine, but the optics look bad, particularly as the timing of triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty — the only means by which an EU member state can serve notice to leave — remained firmly in the hands of the Brits themselves.

Throughout the general election campaign, May repeatedly said that she would be prepared to see the UK leave the EU without a divorce deal in place. Given the complexities of the divorce negotiations over the next 500 days, there seems to be little if any realistic chance of a Brexit deal being hammered out.

Consider too that the negotiations now underway in Brussels are focused just on three main areas: The size of the financial obligations due by Britain to the EU for leaving the bloc; the rights of the 3 million EU citizens who now reside in the UK and the rights of the 1.5 million Brits who live in the EU; and ensuring that the land border between the British-ruled province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland to the south remains open for the free movement of goods, services and people.

‘Can go whistle’

Each one of these key issues are fundamentally complex. Boris Johnson, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, has said Brussels “can go whistle” if it thinks the UK will pay for leaving the bloc. A figure of €60 billion (Dh253.8 billion) is being mentioned in Berlaymont, a big fat zero is being bandied around by Boris. That’s a big gap to be bridged and every pound paid by London will make it harder for May’s many critics to swallow.

What happens to the health coverage for the EU citizens living in Birmingham? The pensions paid to Brits retired in Benidorm? What’s to stop any EU citizen from eastern Europe flying into Dublin and simply taking a bus to Belfast? Will there be passport checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK? You can hear Arlene Foster and the rest of her Democratic Unionist Party MPs who are keeping May in power pulling the rug on the confidence and supply arrangement at the very thought of such a move.

Then consider that trade arrangements will take time; fisheries and agriculture; environmental rights; energy issues; common security measures and sharing of intelligence; tax and pension issues; banking and financial services; the role of the European Court of Justice and its rulings; education and the movement of students; air travel and air navigation rights; steel issues and import of goods; Euratom and nuclear regulation; speciality foods; freedom of movement for British trucks on EU roads and EU trucks on British roads; how long can drivers go without a break? Should British cars meet EU standards? ... The list is indeed endless.

Yep, there’s little chance of a Brexit deal being reached. After all, the clocks in Berlaymont are well and truly ticking.