Ready for the showdown
As UK prepares to trigger Brexit on March 29, pro-Europe protesters gathered in a show of support at a rally in Berlin, while similar protests rocked London.
B ritain will take an unprecedented step into the unknown on Wednesday with the first formal move towards leaving the European Union, starting a two-year process that has already divided the country.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of London on Saturday to protest against Brexit, and Scotland’s parliament on Tuesday is set to vote in favour of holding an independence referendum. Scots voted to stay in the EU, but the majority verdict in Britain’s EU referendum last year was 52 per cent in favour of putting an end to a loveless marriage that has lasted more than four decades.
Those in favour are impatient for Brexit talks to begin and accuse Prime Minister Theresa May of playing for time since the June referendum. But europhiles are increasingly concerned. “Stop this madness!” read a banner held up at Saturday’s march to parliament — held just three days after a terror attack there — to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the EU’s founding treaty of Rome.
May’s formal letter of notification to EU President Donald Tusk will trigger Article 50 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty: an exit clause that no member state has ever used. The EU is expected to issue a first response later this week, followed by a summit of EU leaders on April 29 to adopt guidelines for the talks.
Bitter campaign
The exit negotiations themselves are not expected to start until at least three weeks after that. The referendum campaign created bitter rifts between different parts of the country, generations and social classes, as well as exposing a chasm between the haves and have-nots of globalisation.
Brexit has also sparked a round of soul-searching in the EU, even fears of a wider break-up. May has said she will respond to a major demand of the Brexit campaign by cutting the numbers of EU immigrants who move to Britain — hundreds of thousands every year — and will have to pull Britain out of the European single market to do so.
She has advocated a “clean break” but has also said she wants an “implementation phase” to keep the status quo between Britain leaving the EU and any new arrangement to allow her country to adapt.
As the countdown begins, there is a real chance that negotiations will break down and Britain will be forced out of the EU without any deal in place.
Anand Menon of the UK in a Changing Europe research group estimated a 50-per cent possibility of this happening, meaning Britain and the EU will have to trade with higher tariffs than now under World Trade Organisation (WTO) membership rules. “A deal will take a lot more time, goodwill and tact than has been on display from either side,” he said.
Divorce bill
Business leaders have warned that this would be by far the worst scenario, but May has said, “No deal is better than a bad deal”, and she has the support of pro-Brexit hardliners in her Conservative Party.
The EU says “everything is ready” for Britain to begin its EU exit and officials in Brussels have already outlined a divorce bill for Britain of between €55 and €60 billion (Dh218 Dh238 billion). “When a country leaves the union there is no punishment, there is no price to pay to leave. But we must settle the accounts, no more, no less,” the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Wednesday.
We want a more powerful Europe, which means that we will have to cooperate more closely in our defence.” Angela Merkel | German Chancellor
When a country leaves union there is no punishment, there is no price to pay to leave. But we must settle the accounts, no more, no less.” Michel Barnier | EU chief negotiator
It was a journey of conquest, a journey of hopes that have been fulfilled and of hopes that have yet to be fulfilled.” Paolo Gentiloni | Italian Prime Minister