Show a united front, Macron tells EU leaders
French president warns of potential splits over Brexit as individual countries pursue their own interests
EMMANUEL MACRON has warned of the risk of splits emerging between EU states over Brexit negotiations, in an implicit admission that Europe’s “united front” over the talks is under threat. Speaking to The Daily Telegraph at the Elysée Palace, the French president warned fellow EU leaders not to fall for the “prisoner’s dilemma” – a notorious paradox in game theory in which two parties act out of individual self-interest and both lose out in the process.
Mr Macron’s comments were a French clarion call for unity as Brussels pleads with the remaining 27 EU states not to allow individual self-interest to trump common goals in the coming trade negotiations.
His remarks came despite France aggressively prosecuting its own Brexit agenda to erode UK dominance in financial services, including planning what the Financial Times this week dubbed as a “raid” on the UK’S £8trillion asset management industry.
At a new year’s presidential event on Wednesday evening, Mr Macron, who is due to meet Theresa May at a Francobritish summit on Jan 18, was asked by The Telegraph how he thought Brexit negotiations were going.
The centrist Europhile said that the same unified EU approach to getting a deal in the first phase of talks would be carried into the second phase as the EU seeks to agree a “common mandate” on a UK-EU future relationship.
“I think this is the right method as it avoids divisions and once again allows us to preserve the collective interest,” he said. He added: “Each of us can have our own interests. That’s what the prisoner’s dilemma is all about. Everyone can have an interest in negotiating on their own, and think they can negotiate better than their neighbour.
“If we do that, it is probable that collectively we will create a situation which is unfavourable to the European Union and thus to each one of us.”
Mr Macron announced that he would host 80 heads of state on Nov 11 to commemorate the end of the First World War, including US President Donald Trump.
EU heads of state allowed Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief negotiator, to move into “phase two” last month after securing a commitment from Mrs May on the financial terms of the divorce, the rights of European citizens residing in the UK and the Irish border.
Mr Barnier can now engage in “exploratory” trade talks with Mrs May’s cabinet before receiving formal, more detailed guidelines in March.
But as EU member states try to reach agreement on the guidelines they could be tempted to push their own agenda to try to shape a deal suiting their economic interests or domestic politics.
Donald Tusk, the European Council president, has already warned that trade talks will present the “true test” of EU unity, while Enrico Letta, the former Italian prime minister, has warned that unity would be “harder to maintain” now EU member states’ interests were directly at stake. Ireland and Hungary hinted that they could become allies of Britain during trade talks as they called for a comprehensive deal to be struck.
After a meeting between Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, and Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, in Budapest yesterday, Mr Varadkar said: “We are both committed to working constructively to ensure that the agreement on both the terms of its withdrawal and the nature of its future relationship with the EU is favourable.”