BREXIT: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
The declaration will outline the parameters of future British relations with Europe, with goals like a free trade pact to be negotiated after Brexit day
Exhausted diplomats in Brussels have taken to calling this stage of the Brexit negotiations “The Tunnel”.
British and EU oficials are negotiating day and night to get to the outline of a Brexit deal by Wednesday.
They need to resolve the inal sticking points, notably on customs checks for Northern Ireland, before EU leaders meet to decide on next steps.
Here’s what you need to know to understand an unprecedented divorce battle:
The core of the talks so far have concerned arrangements for Britain’s “orderly” separation from Europe after 40 years of shared trade and laws.
Often called the “divorce agreement”, this text will take the form of a legal treaty and it must be agreed quickly to allow the British and EU parliaments to ratify it.
If it’s not in place and ratified by March 29, Britain will crash out of Europe in a “no deal” Brexit with serious economic and legal consequences.
But there’s also a second text. The “political declaration” will be much shorter, maybe six or seven pages.
It will not be a legal text, but it could prove politically explosive.
The declaration will outline the parameters of future British relations with Europe, with goals like a free trade pact to be negotiated after Brexit day.
It won’ t be binding, but british lawmakers and voters may baulk at paying tens of billions of euros in a divorce settlement with no detailed promises on future ties.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
EU negotiator Michel Barnier says the Brexit treaty is 80 to 85 per cent ready. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney went as high as 90 percent.
Both sides have agreed language on the rights of each others’ citizens on their territory. They have put a number on the huge bill that Britain will pay.
A transition period has been agreed: Britain will apply EU rules and pay into the budget until 2020, while the future relationship is negotiated in more detail.
But you only get to 90 per cent of a deal by leaving the hardest stuff until last.
Britain has not yet agreed that the European Court of Justice will have oversight if either side complains about the other breaking the treaty.
And the issue of Northern Ireland’s borders could yet break the deal.
Both London and Brussels agree that there should be no return to border controls between Ireland and the British province of Northern Ireland.
Closer cross-border ties are a key development underpinning the return to peace since the Good Friday Agreement ended three decades of conlict.
Europe’s preferred solution would be for Northern Ireland to remain in the EU Customs union after brexit, and for low-key controls between Britain and the North. But Ulster unionists, including the small but influential DUP, will reject anything that divides them even symbolically from the core United Kingdom.
And hardline eurosceptic mainland politicians reject the alternative pushed by Prime Minister Theresa May, for all of Britain to remain in the customs union for now.
Europe -- while being ready to negotiate a trade deal after the divorce -- is wary of London trying to “cherry pick” single market access while rejecting EU rules.
We will know by Wednesday whether May has decided to take up an invitation to outline any new plans to the other 27 EU leaders at a pre-summit dinner.
One idea that the British press has reported would be to extend the transition period beyond 2020, but it’s not clear whether May’s own party would back that.
Barnier, meanwhile, is insisting his border controls between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK could be “de-dramatised” to the point of near invisibility.
If the negotiators can convince the EU leaders that a deal is imminent, they could call another summit next month to approve the package.
If they can’t, the EU 27 will head back to their capitals to begin planning for a “hard Brexit”.
LIMPING BREXIT TALKS
With just under six months until Brexit day, German business is losing patience with negotiations ahead of a vital deadline, warning ever more stridently of the risks of a no-deal departure.
“Europe must stop a worst-case Brexit scenario,” Joachim Lang, director of the Federation of German Industry (BDI) said Tuesday, warning that “a separation of the UK from the EU without a departure or transitional agreement or clarification of the future relationship is still a possibility.”
At stake for Germany are some 50,000 jobs the BDI says depend directly on business with the UK.
In inancial terms, Europe’s largest economy sold 84.4 billion euros ($97.4 billion) of exports to Britain in 2017, making the island nation its ifth-biggest customer, while importing 37.1 billion.
The scale means a no-deal Brexit would be “a disaster that would cause great dificulties for tens of thousands of irms and hundreds of thousands of workers on both sides of the English Channel,” Lang said.
Current talks aim to settle Britain’s divorce issues and agree a “transition phase” to ease its departure by keeping it under EU law through 2020.
But while much is already agreed, negotiations have snagged on thorny issues like the Irish border that allow for little compromise and divide British PM Theresa May’s majority.
An EU leaders’ summit this week has been dubbed a “moment of truth”, as two sets of lawmakers -- in Westminster and the European Parliament -- must both green-light any deal and will need time to debate it before Brexit day on March 29.
Adding to the pressure, the European Commission said last week it was making plans to cope with a no-deal scenario.
‘WILL BRITS BE REASONABLE?’
Businesses on the front line of potential Brexit disruption mostly strike a less alarmist tone than the BDI chief.
“If Britain becomes a ‘third country’ (losing membership of the EU’S single market) it’s not a problem, we already work with 50 third countries,” said Samia Zimmerling, head of export administration at Delta Pronatura -- a cleaning products maker with operations in both Germany and the UK.
But she lamented the drawn-out talks, which are delaying concrete adjustments companies must make to any new trade arrangements, like updating complex IT systems.
“We’re waiting every day,” she said. “We don’t have any faith in the British (government), they’re just indecisive.”
Zimmerling and around 200 other businesspeople attended a Wednesday conference organised by Frankfurt’s Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHK), one of a string of events in economic centres around Germany.
Britain’s departure has special significance for Frankfurt, which is both the centre of the powerhouse “Rhine-main” region and a inancial hub.
Bankers and local politicians hope to attract banking business from London following Brexit, with lobby group Frankfurt Main Finance last week tallying 26 inancial irms that will transplant some operations. But at Wednesday’s meeting, experts from the inance ministry in Berlin and the customs service focused on explaining more prosaic issues to the gathered businesspeople.
Attempting to strike a bright tone and coax the odd laugh from the audience along the way, they delved into how to register for customs software or claim back taxes on goods exported outside the EU.
Higher barriers to trade “wouldn’t be anything new to us as a company, although for me personally, yes,” said Thorsten Neubecker, a 30-year veteran of Germany-uk trucking at transport irm MOL Logistics.
“We’re assuming that there will be this temporary two-year transition period, to give us time” to adapt, he added.
“Whether the Brits will be reasonable, whether Brussels will be, I don’t know, we just have to hope.”
Alexander Schroeer of Cuta Solutions, a irm that advises other companies about international trade, was more pessimistic.
“There’s a political discussion in England that has nothing to do with the agreement itself,” he complained.
“For me it’s clear that there will be a hard Brexit.”