Barnier: We don’t want to negotiate with UK

MICHEL BARNIER, the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, has said Brussels does not “want to negotiate” with Britain in one of his most uncompromising interviews to date.

Mr Barnier said all of the problems of negotiating Britain’s withdrawal from the EU had been created by the UK and “no one else”.

He also took a swipe at Theresa May for having failed to set out a “clear position” on Britain’s future relationship with the EU.

In a documentary for Vice News, A US channel, he said that “it is the decision of the British to leave the union that has created the problem. No one else. Nothing else”.

He added: “What is sometimes hard for the British to understand is that we

‘It is the decision of the British to leave the union that has created the problem. No one else. Nothing else’

don’t want to negotiate, we don’t want to compromise on who we are. They want to leave, it is their choice to leave.”

He said he had “no certainty” about the nature of Britain’s future relationship with the EU. “I can see the difficulty and intensity of this debate,” he said. “We are waiting for the British to have clear positions and choices.”

Mr Barnier also made it clear that neither of Theresa May’s current proposals for a customs arrangement with the EU – a customs partnership or the so-called Max Fac alternative – was viable.

In a private meeting with members of the European Parliament’s Brexit steering group, Mr Barnier said: “The British have been moving forward with several ideas.

“They have two proposals which are being debated with British ministers. Neither of those proposals are operational or acceptable to us.”