May tells EU to be more flexible over Brexit trade deal
THERESA May last night ordered the EU to start showing some “flexibility” in Brexit negotiations after Eurocrats flatly rejected her plan for a trade deal.
Draft guidelines published by Brussels yesterday ruled out the Prime Minister’s blueprint for a bespoke trade partnership between the UK and the EU.
Donald Tusk said Britain will suffer “negative economic consequences” as a result of leaving the bloc.
The EU Council President went further in raising tensions by insisting that cross-Channel trade will be “more complicated and costly” after Brexit.
“A pick-and-mix approach for a non-member state is simply not acceptable,” he said. “Our agreement will not make trade between the UK and EU frictionless or smoother.
“It will make it more complicated and costly than today for all of us. This is the essence of Brexit.”
His downbeat prediction sparked irritation in Downing Street last night, with Mrs May’s officials rejecting the EU’s latest proposals as a “draft” that was not the basis for serious discussions. “We look forward to seeing the final guidelines when published and hope they will provide the flexibility to allow the EU to think creatively and imaginatively about our future economic partnership,” the Prime Minister’s spokesman said.
Strategy
Chancellor Philip Hammond later dismissed the EU proposals as more positioning ahead of the next round of talks in Brussels.
He said: “It doesn’t surprise me that their position in their guidelines is, ‘We would like a great deal of the thing that, clearly, the British will be reluctant to concede’ and very little at all on offer of the things that the British will regard as most important.”
He added: “That is probably not a bad opening strategy for anyone engaged in a negotiation process.
“You have to see this as a negotiating strategy.”
Mr Hammond also rejected EU threats to exclude Britain’s financial services sector from the eventual trade agreement due to be adopted.
“I am clear not only that it is possible to include financial services within a trade deal, but that it is very much in our mutual interest to do so,” he said.