Trade talks will follow divorce, EU tells Britain
BRUSSELS — Britain must agree to pay its bills and to protect millions of Europeans living in Britain before reaching a new trading relationship with the European Union, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said Friday.
Side-by-side divorce and trade talks “will not happen,” Tusk said at a news conference in Malta. Divorce has to come first, he said, and he warned that the negotiations could be “confrontational.”
Tusk also wrote on Twitter: “Our duty is to minimize uncertainty, disruption caused by Brexit for citizens, businesses & Member States. It’s about damage control.” He added that the European Union would not pursue a “punitive approach,” because “Brexit in itself is already punitive enough.”
He also wrote: “After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to make this divorce as smooth as possible.”
The words were tough, but unsurprising: For months, since Britain voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the bloc, Brussels has insisted that the terms of a future trade agreement would not be negotiated until the terms of the divorce were clear.
Britain formally began the withdrawal process on Wednesday, and Tusk’s statement on Friday essentially made official the EU’s stance.
That was in keeping with the tough talk coming from Germany, the bloc’s most influential member, this week. On Friday, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, told a newspaper in the country that, while both sides should strive to minimize the damage, “there are no rights without obligations” and that Britain would have to leave the single market if it refused to abide by the EU’s principles.
That followed a statement on Thursday by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that rejected a demand put forth by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain that talks on the withdrawal be conducted in tandem with discussions about economic relations.
“The negotiations must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship,” Merkel said. “Only when this question is dealt with can we — hopefully, soon after — begin talking about our future relationship.”
In laying out the EU’s terms for the exit negotiations — which still must be approved by the leaders of the 27 remaining nations — Tusk essentially presented the bloc’s response to May’s opening move.
Tusk said the 27 leaders would determine when there had been “sufficient progress” to start discussing Britain’s future trade arrangements.
The terms, nonetheless, represent an early setback for Britain. The draft guidelines outline a “phased approach” that the EU will require Britain to follow before talks about any deal on access to the European single market of more than 500 million consumers.
Merkel and President François Hollande of France have insisted that London first agree on how to protect the rights of more than about 3 million expatriates in Britain, and more than 1 million British nationals living in Continental Europe, and on the amount of money Britain owes to cover its commitments as a member of the bloc.