11 July 2017

POLITICO: No ‘softening’ of UK’s Brexit position, says David Davis

Britain has not softened its position on Brexit and will “challenge” the EU over its calculation of the U.K.’s financial obligations to Brussels, Brexit Secretary David Davis said Tuesday.

After Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called the EU’s estimate of the so-called Brexit bill “extortionate,” Davis told the House of Lords’ EU committee that his department was analyzing the Commission’s proposals “line by line, almost by word” and said the U.K. could make a counter-proposal. The European Commission is reported to put the U.K.’s net obligations at around £60 billion.

However, he conceded that the British were “getting to the point of really dealing with practicalities” and indicated that securing an agreement on a transitional arrangement had become a priority.He said the general election, in which Prime Minister Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority, had not fundamentally changed the U.K.’s Brexit stance, saying that the press had “overplayed any softening.” [...]

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