Brexit ‘bill of billions cannot be enforced’

EUROPE: A massive €100 billion (NZ$159b) Brexit bill is ‘‘legally impossible’’ to enforce, the European Commission’s own lawyers have admitted.

The Sunday Telegraph has seen minutes of internal deliberations circulated by the Brussels Brexit negotiating team that had warned against pursuing the UK for extra payments.

But member states appear to have ignored the Commission’s own advice by demanding €100 billion from the Government - a sharp hike in the original demand of €60 billion.

The inflated bill has deepened the rift between Brussels and Downing St. A leaked report of a No 10 dinner with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker accused Theresa May of living in ‘‘another galaxy’’, prompting the prime minister in turn to accuse EU politicians and officials of seeking to disrupt the election.

The Sunday Telegraph has also learnt that Britain has called in an international war negotiator to counter growing hostility from Brussels.

Ministers asked William Ury, a Harvard-based US negotiator, for help after he played a key role in ending the 52-year-long civil war in Colombia.

The row over extra payments demanded by Europe arises from a refusal by the Commission to offset any final bill against the value of EU assets that are effectively part-owned by the UK. Brussels is also demanding Britain continues to pay farm subsidies until the end of 2020, almost two years after Brexit.

But both of these moves fly in the face of European Commission warnings to EU member states that such demands could undermine the legal foundation for the final settlement.

The Commission’s initial position - now apparently overruled by EU leaders - would appear to support British contention that the European demands on Britain’s ‘‘debt’’ are legally flimsy and wildly overstated.

At a Brexit seminar in February held by Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, three member states - Ireland, France and Germany - demanded that the UK’s share of EU assets should not be included in calculations of the Brexit settlement.

According to minutes of the meeting seen by The Sunday Telegraph, Nadia Calvino, the directorgeneral in charge of the budget, rebutted the idea. EU assets are listed in it’s annual accounts, which is the legally watertight basis for calculating Britain’s final bill. At the seminar, she warned that if Europe began ‘‘cherrypicking’’ which parts of the annual accounts it wanted to base its own calculations upon, then Britain would be justified in doing exactly the same. - Telegraph Group