UK cranks up pressure on EU
The UK is piling pressure on the European Union to shift the focus of Brexit negotiations away from the terms of divorce and onto their future relationship.
london — The UK is piling pressure on the European Union to shift the focus of Brexit negotiations away from the terms of divorce and onto their future relationship.
Britain will publish a flurry of documents in the coming days laying out the government’s position on topics ranging from data protection to judicial cooperation. Five papers are due to be published in the week starting on Monday, the Department for Exiting the European Union said in a statement on Sunday. The next round of negotiations is due to start on August 29.
Before talks can move on to commerce, Prime Minister Theresa May needs to convince EU leaders at an October summit that enough progress has been made on residency rights, the UK’s exit bill and the border with Ireland.
The EU has been unwavering in its stance that details of the separation must be sorted out first, and the 27 other EU nations have united behind their lead negotiator Michel Barnier in the past five months. The UK insists it wants to hold trade and divorce talks in tandem.
Writing in the Sunday Times newspaper, Brexit Secretary David Davis warned that “with the clock ticking” towards the March 2019 departure date there is no point in negotiating aspects of Brexit twice. He pointed to Northern Ireland as an issue where divorce and trade talks need to go hand in hand.
“It is simply not possible to reach a near-final agreement on the border issue until we’ve begun to talk about how our broader future customs arrangements will work,” he wrote. “Furthermore, if we get the comprehensive free trade agreement we’re seeking as part of our future partnership, solutions in Northern Ireland are easier to deliver.”
‘Beyond doubt’
The five upcoming papers are “all part of our work to drive the talks forward, and make sure we can show beyond doubt that we have made sufficient progress on withdrawal issues by October,” Davis said in a separate statement. Britain is “putting forward imaginative and creative solutions to build a deep and special partnership with our closest neighbors and allies.”
On Monday, Britain plans to publish papers on “goods on the market” and “confidentiality of documents.” The first is a response to an EU paper setting out provisions that goods made available for sale before Brexit should still be available for purchase in both the EU and UK after Britain’s withdrawal.
Davis will say the EU proposals should extend to related services; for example, a maintenance contract that comes with the sale of an elevator. While the document will only cover a small part of the withdrawal deal, it foreshadows the fight Britain faces to ensure services are covered in a future trade deal with the EU. Services make up 80 per cent of the gross value added to the British economy, compared with an EUwide 74 per cent.
Expect friction
The data protection and judicial cooperation papers will come later in the week, along with one on proposed mechanisms for dispute resolution once the European Court of Justice no longer has jurisdiction in the UK. This last one is expected to cause the most friction,
It is simply not possible to reach a near-final agreement on the border issue until we’ve begun to talk about how our broader future customs arrangements will work David Davis, Brexit Secretary
since May has made escaping oversight of European courts a red line while the EU sees a continued role for the ECJ.
Davis has been stung by domestic criticism of his approach, as well as an accusation from Barnier that the UK has been wasting time — not least by holding a snap election in June that cost the Conservative Party its parliamentary majority.
At the previous round of talks in July, envoys discussed the rights of EU citizens in Britain and those of Britons living in the bloc after Brexit. They then published a document showing disagreement on 14 of the 44 topics related to that discussion.
Last week, Britain published its proposals for how to deal with the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, throwing down the gauntlet for the EU to do likewise. On the bill associated with Britain’s departure, ministers have acknowledged the need for a payment, though Davis said last week that it would involve a “long haggle.”
The government received a boost on Sunday as a group of proBrexit economists estimated that leaving the EU single market and customs union could add £135 billion ($173 billion) to the UK economy and lower prices by opening up global free trade and spurring competition. — Bloomberg