Let bateau commence: EU approves its own ‘royal yacht’

EUROPEAN Union officials are working on secret plans for a new “bateau de commerce” to secure post-Brexit trade agreements, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

A ship dubbed “le trade yacht” will carry key European figures to trade talks as the EU attempts to forge ties with non-EU countries, particularly the Commonwealth, when Britain leaves.

The ship Europa is modelled on the blueprints for the new Royal Yacht, which were drawn up by the Ministry of Defence after Tony Blair’s government controversially decommissioned Britannia in 1997.

A share of the estimated £350million cost of the new EU trade yacht will be added to the £37billion Brexit bill that Britain must already pay to leave the EU, Brussels sources said.

News of the EU yacht plan is likely to inflame relations among Brexiteers as Theresa May’s government is resisting pressure to commission a replacement for the royal yacht. Jean Claude Juncker, the EU president, and other key officials are said to be enthusiastic about having a federal yacht. According to Avril Poisson, his biographer, Mr Juncker has been hankering after a vessel since he visited HMY Britannia in 1987, when he was prime minister of Luxembourg.

Plans to build a counterpart were thwarted by his own officials then, as they explained the Grand Duchy was landlocked. At a late-night summit in 2012, David Cameron, then prime minister, torpedoed similar plans for an EU boat as “an unbelievable joke”. But an EU source said last night: “Now the Brits are gone, Europe can rule the waves.”

The yacht’s blueprints were drawn up in secret by the Brüder Läffter shipyard in Hamburg, and work is set to start on April 1 next year, days after the UK formally leaves the EU on March 29.

The yacht will have 27 bedrooms for national leaders, the world’s longest floating bar and a lifeboat officials have cheekily dubbed “Article 50”.

Britannia is thought to have secured £3billion of trade deals for Britain between 1991 and 1995.