31 August 2017

Michel Barnier: ‘No decisive progress’ on key Brexit issues

“We did not get any decisive progress on any of the principal subjects,” the EU’s Michel Barnier said, though he added there had been “fruitful” discussions on issues including the Northern Irish border.

And Barnier said that at the current juncture, the two sides remained far from achieving the European Council’s goal of “sufficient progress” on divorce terms by October.

Barnier said: “At the current state of progress, we are quite far from being able to say that sufficient progress has taken place, sufficient for me to recommend to the European Council that it engage in discussions on the future relationship.”

The U.K.’s top negotiator, David Davis, offered a more upbeat assessment but nonetheless acknowledged that progress was minimal, and he conceded that there was a sharp divide over the financial settlement.

“The Commission set out its position,” Davis said of the financial settlement issues, “and we have a duty to our taxpayers to interrogate it rigorously … It’s fair to say we have a very different legal stance.”

Noting that negotiators had previously warned there would not be incremental progress in every negotiating round, Davis said, “I think this round demonstrates that” but he also added: “I think we succeeded in building mutual understanding, but I think it’s also clear there are significant differences to be bridged.”

Davis repeated his appeal for more “flexibility” from the EU negotiating team, but Barnier was blunt in his assessment of the position papers published by the U.K. in the run up to the talks. “The U.K. wants to take back control, it wants to adopt its own standards and regulations but it also wants to have these standards recognized automatically in the EU. That is what the U.K. papers ask for. This is simply impossible,” he said.

The EU chief negotiator suggested there was a “nostalgia” in the U.K. for the benefits of EU membership even as the country was on the verge of leaving. “Perhaps now is the time [in the U.K.] to explain what being a member of the European Union and the single market entails,” he said.

Davis shot back: “I wouldn’t confuse a belief in the free market for nostalgia.”

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Brussels standoff over Brexit bill

Brexit negotiators reached a standoff Wednesday when the U.K. team challenged the core basis of the EU’s demand for a financial settlement and expressed increasing frustration at what they see as inflexibility on the EU side. [...]

British negotiators, meanwhile, reacted angrily to the idea they aren’t “serious” about the talks. “The U.K. does not agree with what seems to be a view around this town that ‘serious’ means the U.K. agreeing with the Commission,” an individual familiar with the negotiations said.

Both sides acknowledge the so-called Brexit bill is now the biggest and most pressing obstacle to a deal.

Before the first substantive round of talks in July, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s team outlined a methodology for calculating the U.K.’s financial obligations.

Bowman’s group has not produced either a figure or an explanation of what they think they should pay. Instead, they are pushing back on what one individual familiar with the talks called “the assumptions on which the EU’s position on financial obligations is based.”

The EU’s position is that the Brexit bill should be calculated according to the EU’s long-term budget plan, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). That runs from 2014 through 2020 — including about 21 months beyond the U.K.’s expected date of departure.

“The U.K. has very clearly and very robustly challenged the assumptions on which the EU’s position on financial obligations is based,” the individual familiar with the progress of negotiations said.

Rather than set out proposals for what the U.K. should pay, British negotiators on Tuesday presented Barnier’s team with a legal analysis that challenges the EU position.  [...]

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S&D group leader Pittella: Stalemate doesn´t come as a surprise. UK is still far from being open and keen to discuss seriously over Brexit

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