Non, non, non! May baulks at call for Brexit talks in French
THERESA MAY last night slapped down EU demands that Brexit negotiations be conducted in French as she rebuked European leaders for a lack of maturity.
The Prime Minister used her first European Council meeting to dismiss an attempt by Michel Barnier, the EU’s top Brexit negotiator, to rule on the “working language” of the talks.
She also suggested that “immature” EU premiers are looking for “problems” rather than “opportunities” during Brexit talks.
Mrs May made clear that she intends to negotiate trade deals ahead of Britain’s formal exit despite threats of legal action from JeanClaude Juncker, the president of the European Commission.
Mr Barnier was yesterday reported to have demanded that EU and British officials conduct all major Brexit talks in French, in what was seen as an attempt to humiliate Mrs May at her first Brussels summit.
Mrs May responded: “We will conduct the negotiations in the way that means we are going to get the right deal for Britain.”
Aides made clear that she will refuse any attempt to use French during the negotiations.
Minutes after Mrs May’s response, Mr Barnier said that he had yet to decide in which language the negotiation would be conducted.
He denied that he had “expressed” an opinion but said the language would be “set” at the start of exit talks.
An EU spokesman stressed this was not an official line. “There is no language regime for the negotiations,” she said.
Using French marks a shift away from standard practice among multinational teams in Brussels, where French lost its status to English as the EU’s main working language after northern and eastern states joined over the past two decades.
Even officials from the EU’s founding powers, France and Germany, communicate mainly in English.
The demand sends a signal to Mrs May that the EU plans to put its own interests first in negotiating the “divorce” talks which the Prime Minister has promised to launch by March.
As an EU commissioner until 2014, Mr Barnier, 65, had a difficult relationship with the UK government, as he sought to tighten regulation of Britain’s dominant financial services industry.
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