01 May 2017

Financial Times: UK hits out at European Commission after Brexit meeting leak

The British government has accused the European Commission of seeking to “punish” the UK over Brexit after the leaked account of a private dinner raised tensions between London and Brussels. The Report said Juncker was ‘10 times more sceptical’ after last week’s Downing Street dinner.

A report published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung portrayed last Wednesday’s dinner between Theresa May, British prime minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, European Commission president, as a disaster.

The leak highlighted the gulf between what the UK wants and what the EU considers realistic, but has also led politicians from across Britain’s political spectrum to emphasise that talks may fail to yield a deal.

“Juncker wants money but also wants to punish us — and deter any other member state from leaving,” a senior British government figure said. “He has been told we are willing to walk away without a deal, which is worrying him.”

The official described the leak as “very foolish” because it was essential to conduct the Brexit talks in a spirit of trust. “That principle has now been breached,” the official said.

According to the FAZ, commission officials were astonished at Mrs May’s ambitions for the talks, including rapid resolution of the status of expatriates, a confidential negotiating process and a trade deal within two years.

The FAZ article quotes Mr Juncker as saying that he left the dinner “10 times more sceptical than I was before”. The commission president told Angela Merkel, German chancellor, of his concerns in an early-morning phone call the next day.

Speaking during election campaigning, Mrs May dismissed the account as “just Brussels gossip”, noting that immediately after the dinner the commission had described the talks as “constructive”. But she added that the episode showed that the talks would be “tough”. [...]

Mr Juncker and Michel Barnier, the chief EU negotiator who was also present at the dinner, were astounded by the prime minister’s assertion that the UK did not have to pay “a penny” of a Brexit divorce bill, which the EU has estimated as up to €60bn, because there was nothing in the EU treaty to say that it had to.

Mr Juncker responded that without a financial settlement there would be no UK-EU trade deal. He also said, according to the FAZ: “Brexit cannot be a success.” [...]

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