May to bypass EU’s Brexit chief with a £20bn divorce offer
Well, they DID say watch your back, Theresa!
THERESA May is threatening to bypass Brussels in a bid to break the deadlock on Brexit by offering payments of up to £20billion into the EU’s budget.
The Prime Minister has launched a direct appeal to EU leaders to commence talks on a new trade deal this year regardless of the views of the European Commission and its chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
Mrs May is expected to use a landmark speech in Florence tomorrow to offer to continue making contributions to the EU during a two-year transition period after Britain leaves the bloc.
Although it is understood that she will not use a precise figure, this offer would amount to payments of up £20billion – still more than many Eurosceptics want to pay, but far less than the £90billion ‘divorce bill’ demanded by some in the EU.
Last night, Mrs May held talks with three EU leaders at the UN in New York as she attempted to sell her Brexit vision and persuade them to kickstart trade negotiations. Next week, she will put a similar proposal to Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, which represents the 27 other EU leaders.
The hope is that the offer will address the concerns of EU leaders who fear having to plug the financial hole in the existing EU budget, which runs until the end
‘Final decision will be taken by leaders’
of 2020. But there were already signs last night that an offer in the region of £20billion will be nowhere near enough to satisfy many in the Commission.
EU officials suggested that Brussels would expect much broader financial commitments on pensions, loan liabilities and EU projects before agreeing to trade talks. One diplomat said it was ‘very doubtful’ that member states would consider the offer to be ‘sufficient’.
EU leaders are due to decide next month whether ‘sufficient progress’ has been made in the Brexit talks to authorise the start of talks on a new trade deal. Downing Street is reported to have already briefed German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the plans.
And Mrs May was expected to outline the proposals in person yesterday during private meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, Dutch PM Mark Rutte and Italian PM Paolo Gentiloni.
Speaking to reporters in the US yesterday, Mrs May made it clear that it was EU leaders, not Mr Barnier who would make the ‘final decision’ on the Brexit deal.
She said: ‘I will be meeting a number of EU leaders. What I will be doing on Friday is setting out an update on where we are and looking ahead in the negotiations.
‘The negotiations are structured so that the European Union has given a mandate to the Commission which has appointed Michel Barnier. But the final decision will be taken by leaders.’
The move came as Mrs May sought to heal the rift with Boris Johnson over Brexit. The Foreign Secretary was invited to join the PM on her flight back to the UK from New York last night.
The pair were expected to use the seven-hour flight to settle their differences, following a week in which Mr Johnson appeared to be on the brink of resignation after he wrote a 4,000-word article on his concerns about the Government’s direction on Brexit.
Last night Mrs May’s former chief-of-staff Nick Timothy warned that manoeuvring over Brexit by Mr Johnson and the Chancellor Philip Hammond risked the country getting a bad deal.
In an article for the Daily Telegraph, he said: ‘We need a serious plan to cut through the complexity. That is what the Prime Minister hopes to set out in Florence. As she does so, she deserves the full support of her ministers, Leavers and Remainers alike.
‘Boris Johnson and Philip Hammond ... must understand that the surest route to a bad deal, or no deal at all, is to go on behaving as they are.
‘They must stop their games now, because the stakes for Britain’s future are too high.’