02 October 2019

Financial Times: Germany and France brace for another Brexit delay

Germany and France hold out little hope that the UK government’s latest proposals on the Irish border puzzle will help to deliver a Brexit deal at a Brussels summit of EU leaders on October 17-18.

Rather, with considerable misgivings, the Germans and French envisage a third extension of the UK’s departure date from the EU, after two previous delays in March and April.

Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, tweeted on Tuesday that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s newest Brexit plans were “not serious and violate the law”.

Significantly, however, Mr Röttgen added: “#EU should give long extension.”

Mr Röttgen is one of many influential EU politicians who applauded the UK Supreme Court’s verdict last week declaring the Johnson government’s prorogation of parliament illegal. They think that the EU must show patience on Brexit and strong support for British representative democracy and the rule of law.

For its part, the French government has little enthusiasm for reversing Brexit, but believes nonetheless that one more extension — but one only — would be an acceptable short-term compromise.

President Emmanuel Macron has no wish to take a hard line on the British, if that were to place him in a minority among the EU27. Such a stance might risk harming what French officials celebrate as Paris’s expanding influence in Europe and the wider global arena.

Two assumptions lie behind the French and German thinking. The first is that no Brexit agreement seems likely before or during the Brussels summit.

Berlin and Paris consider the UK’s proposals, in their present form, to be poorly designed and impractical. They view them as a frustrating example of the fuzzy ideas that emerge when, as so often during the Brexit saga, British politicians debate each other rather than tackle the nitty-gritty realities of the EU’s legal and regulatory order.

Some French and German policymakers are more sceptical of what is going on in London. They see the UK’s proposals as a sign that Mr Johnson, regarded in many EU capitals as a devious, frivolous and troublesome rightwing populist, simply does not want a deal before the existing deadline of October 31.

The second French and German assumption is that, for the immediate future, a no-deal Brexit is not in the EU’s interests. [...]

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