PM hopes for Brexit boost at Salzburg summit
May to urge EU leaders to back her Chequers plan
THERESA MAY will tonight directly urge EU leaders to compromise on their Brexit stance despite a high-level warning yesterday that Brussels will not change its position.
The Prime Minister will use a major summit in Salzburg, Austria, to make a pitch to EU leaders to back her divisive Chequers proposals.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said it was time for the “compromises” made by the UK to be “matched on the EU side”.
But Mrs May has already been warned by Ireland’s Taoiseach Leo Varadkar: “I do not anticipate there will be any change to the EU’s position or any change to our negotiating guidelines.”
The informal summit has been billed as a potential opportunity for the PM ahead of the Tory Party conference at the end of the month, which is expected to be marred by infighting over Brexit.
Mrs May will be hoping for at least some positive noises from the 27 other EU leaders to help her get through the conference.
In Salzburg, she is expected to briefly set out her position over dinner tonight before her 27 counterparts consider the situation in her absence tomorrow.
Setting out the UK’s hopes, Mr Raab said the summit would be “an important milestone” and “a stepping stone” to a deal.
But he made clear the UK was looking for further movement from the EU on the Irish border.
And he branded Michel Barnier’s “backstop” proposals, which would see Northern Ireland remain in the EU customs area, unworkable, because they would create a border in the Irish Sea and fail to respect the constitutional integrity of the UK.
“What I’m not going to do is to say that I would refuse to entertain any further proposals that the EU comes up with but they’ve got to be respecting the equities that we’ve set out,” he told European newspaper correspondents.
In a sign that Brexit talks could go to the wire, the EU is preparing for a final deal to be struck at an emergency summit in November, rather than the scheduled October meeting previously targeted by both sides in the negotiations.
The deal has to be finalised well in advance of the UK’s March 29, 2019 exit from the bloc so parliaments in Westminster and Strasbourg can sign it off.
European Council president Donald Tusk has said he wants to avoid the “catastrophe” of a nodeal Brexit.
He told EU27 leaders in a letter that they should work on “limiting the damage” caused by Brexit.
“Unfortunately, a no-deal scenario is still quite possible. But if we all act responsibly, we can avoid a catastrophe.”
Meanwhile, a Governmentcommissioned report which recommended that EU migrants should not be given any preferential treatment after Brexit could raise eyebrows in Brussels.
Mrs May will likely have to compromise on the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) study if she wants to secure the close trading relationship with the EU that she desires.
UNSKILLED MIGRANTS from the EU should have their access to Britain restricted after Brexit while more high-skilled workers should be allowed into the country, according to a Governmentcommissioned report.
The long-awaited study concluded EU nationals should be subject to the same rules as migrants from the rest of the world after free movement ceases to apply in the UK.
Ministers asked experts for indepth analysis on migration from the European Economic Area (EEA) in July last year.
The findings, published yesterday, will inform the Government’s decisions on proposed new immigration rules after the post-Brexit transition period, in which little will change, finishes at the end of 2020. The Migration Advisory Committee’s (MAC) report said that, if immigration is not part of the negotiations with the EU and the UK is deciding its future system in isolation, there should be no preference given to EU citizens.
It said: “A migrant’s impact depends on factors such as their skills, employment, age and use of public services, and not fundamentally on their nationality.”
The committee emphasised that it was not expressing a view on whether immigration should be part of the negotiations, but in reality it will be key to unlocking closer trade access to the EU.
The review suggested the future immigration policy should favour high-skilled workers, as there is clear evidence they bring benefits to the UK’s public finances, innovation and productivity.
It recommended that ministers scrap an annual cap of 20,700 on the number of visas available under the Tier 2 skilled work scheme, and open up the route to “medium-skilled” jobs.
But, in a finding which attracted opposition from some sectors, the MAC concluded that there is no need for a specific migration route for low-skilled work, with the possible exception of a seasonal agricultural scheme.
It said this would not mean there is no supply of low-skilled migrant workers, stating that most of the existing workforce would remain and there would likely be a continued flow through family migration or the existing youth mobility scheme.
The 132-page report assessed the impact of EEA migration on a number of areas including the labour market, productivity, public services and communities.
It found that migrants have no or little impact on the overall employment outcomes of the UKborn workforce, while migration is not a “major determinate” of the wages of UK-born workers.
Business leaders gave a mixed response, with the Federation of Master Builders warning its recommendations would “cripple” the construction industry.
Jane Gratton of the British Chambers of Commerce said: “From the perspective of businesses facing severe skills gaps, the MAC’s report gives with one hand and takes away with the other, and the recommendations are unlikely to meet the needs of all employers. Any sudden cut-off of EEA skills and labour would be concerning, if not disastrous, for firms across a wide range of regions and sectors.”