EU plots to block May’s deal on expats

Leaked details of the Commission President’s meeting with Mrs May only highlight EU’s Brexit fears

THE EU has been plotting for weeks to thwart Theresa May’s plans to secure a deal for British expats in Europe and migrants in the UK, The Daily Tele

graph has learnt. JeanClaude Juncker, the European Commission president, is reported to have been “astonished” by Mrs May’s demand that an agreement be reached by the end of next month.

But documents seen by this newspaper disclose that Mrs May made exactly the same demand to Donald Tusk, the European Council president, at a meeting three weeks earlier. The EU had privately decided to block any deal, leaked documents show, but did not want to reveal such a move publicly.

Last night EU leaders were accused of playing a “stupid game” and being more concerned about securing a financial deal than securing the rights of EU and British citizens.

The negotiating strategy emerged after a German newspaper reported leaked details of last week’s meeting between Mr Juncker and Mrs May. Mr Juncker is said to have left Downing Street saying he felt “10 times more sceptical” about a deal than before, and to have told Angela Merkel that the Prime Minister was “deluded”. Mrs May last night hit back by dismissing the account as “Brussels gossip”. In an article for today’s Western

Morning News ahead of a visit to the West Country, she will reinforce the message that the UK needs a tough negotiator, saying: “Across the table from us sit 27 European member states who are united in their determination to do a deal that works for them. We need that same unity of purpose.” At Mrs May’s meeting last Wednesday with Mr Juncker and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, she is said to have told the two men she saw no reason why Britain should pay a bill of up to £50 billion. Mr Juncker is said to have told her “the EU is not a golf club” that members can leave at any time.

But what is said to have surprised Mr Juncker the most was Mrs May’s belief that a deal on citizens’ rights could be agreed by the end of June.

However, The Telegraph has established that Mrs May said the same thing to Mr Tusk on April 6. Diplomatic records show that at a meeting on April 11 Piotr Serafin, chief of staff to Mr Tusk, briefed all the officials present from the EU 27 that Mrs May had made clear the UK would seek a deal on expat rights “probably as early as June”.

He added that this was probably “not feasible” but a source with direct knowledge of the meeting said: “Serafin warned everyone present that it was very important not to give the impression that the EU was blocking an early agreement on citizens’ rights.”

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader, said: “It’s clear and obvious that Juncker briefed this story with the sole intention of making himself look good.

“This is all part of his selfaggrandisement and if nothing demonstrates that the vote last year to leave was a good decision it is this miserable and rude action of the president of the EU.”

The EU wants Mrs May to guarantee all rights of its citizens, including free healthcare, pension rights and legal rights to appeal immigration decisions. British officials say they are willing to rapidly grant those rights via UK law.

Last Wednesday’s dinner date between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker in Downing Street was, we are told, a disaster. Remainers in Britain have seized upon reports in a German newspaper that the European Commission President left the Prime Minister’s house despairing at her obstinacy and ignorance. So should we worry that Britain is doomed to a bad deal – or no deal at all? Relax. These reports, based as they are on leaks from the European Commission, tell us more about the EU’s delusions than Mrs May’s.

Clearly the Eurocrats are still very angry. “Brexit cannot be a success,” Mr Juncker supposedly declared. What he really means is that he cannot allow Brexit to be a success. We may conclude this from the theatrical gesture he is said to have made halfway through the dinner, when he reportedly produced two piles of paper – one the text of the EU-Canada trade agreement, the other Croatia’s EU entry deal – and plonked them on the table, as if to say Brexit will be so impossibly complicated that Britain should not bother.

Yet if you examine what was said, it is Mrs May who, far from “living in another galaxy”, seems the more down to earth. To her credit, she asked if the status of EU nationals living in the UK might be addressed early on – perhaps as early as next month. With three times as many EU expats living in the UK as there are UK nationals in Europe, you might think the President would welcome this. Not a bit of it: by Team Juncker’s own account, he rebuked Mrs May for suggesting any sort of early deal.

At another point, pressed by her guest to agree to a £50 billion “divorce bill”, Mrs May is reported to have pointed out that Britain is not in fact under any obligation to pay anything. Even the most generous of dinner party hosts could hardly be expected to concede a sum equal to all the revenue raised each year by council tax and business rates combined. None of this, however, has prevented some here in Britain from leaping on these anecdotes of acrimony – which, once again, have been deliberately leaked by the European Commission, and must therefore serve a tactical purpose – with a strange speed and fervour. There is a palpable hint of glee in the way they parade them: “See!” they appear to say, “it’s all going to end in tears! Why wouldn’t you listen?”

These are often the same people who have spent much of the last year predicting failure for Brexit. They have accused Mrs May of behaving monstrously by not unilaterally conceding the right of EU nationals to live here, yet when confronted with evidence that it is the most senior EU official who is blocking such a deal, they are silent. They have also, ever since Leave’s shock win, mocked the idea that the millions we pay to the EU each year might be spent instead on our own public services. But when Mrs May pointed out over pudding that we can now do just that, they are somehow not on her side.

So reports of a dinner from hell should be seen in light of the crucial fact that these people are Mr Juncker’s audience. One of his aims in being boorish about Britain is to strengthen his own position vis-à-vis the other Eurocrats as Brussels’ biggest anti-Brexit badass. But he also hopes to galvanise the Remain campaign in the United Kingdom and give it the most powerful possible ammunition for the coming talks.

The Juncker Commission’s willingness to leak details of private conversations in Downing Street is indeed worrying, especially during an election, with which it could be construed to be interfering. But it is a familiar tactic. It shows that the EU is willing to play dirty and that it is rattled: you do not vent your fury at the start of a negotiation if you are confident of getting what you want. Our response should be to rally behind Theresa May and show we cannot be bounced into hysteria by a few leaks.

Sadly, the manner in which its version of events has been written up by certain Remainers tells us that there are still some in Britain, especially among elite opinion-formers, who have not yet reconciled themselves to their country’s democratic decision. All the more reason to ensure that on June 8 Mrs May has a stonkingly large majority.