Break in trade talks deadlock still months away, warns EU
THE European Union yesterday warned Britain it was still “months” away from being able to open Brexit trade negotiations as it emerged major divisions remained between the UK and EU over the so-called Brexit bill.
Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief negotiator, insisted that Britain would have to pay its full share of spending earmarked for the EU after Brexit, as the bloc’s own auditors criticised the EU for running up spending commitments of some £210billion – an “all time high”.
At the end of four days of talks in Brussels, Mr Barnier said: “We have had a constructive week, yes, but we are not yet there,” he said, later adding: “It will take weeks, maybe even months before we are able to say there has been sufficient progress.”
Both sides said they had made progress on citizens’ rights and the Northern Irish border, but Mr Barnier said the EU still wanted the European Court of Justice to play “an indispensable role” in ensuring the EU citizens’ rights guaranteed in the agreement were observed. “This is a stumbling block for the EU,” he said.
Last night Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, claimed that a majority of people in the UK no longer want to leave the EU.
He said: “While this [backing Brexit] is true for most British politicians, and for most English newspapers, this is not the case for what seems to be today a majority of British citizens.”
He joked that Mrs May chose to make her keynote speech in Florence, a city renowned for “back-stabbing and betrayal”, because it felt familiar for her.
Meanwhile, back at Westminster, the Delegated Powers Committee in the Lords issued a damning report on the Government’s Brexit legislation, the EU Withdrawal Bill, warning that powers granted to ministers to change legislation were “wholly unacceptable”.