May
gets Hollande ultimatum: free trade depends on free movement
French
leader takes hard line in meeting with British prime minister
Leave camp
may struggle to deliver on referendum promises
Calais
checks under Le Touquet agreement will stay in place, says president
Rowena Mason in
Paris
Thursday 21 July
2016 21.50 BST
Theresa May was
warned by the French president, François Hollande, at their first
meeting in Paris that the UK cannot expect access to the single
market if it wants to put immigration controls on EU citizens.
At a joint press
conference in the Élysée Palace, Hollande made it clear that the
new British prime minister was facing a choice about whether to
accept free movement of people in return for free trade.
Standing next to May
and speaking in French with an official translator, he said: “It’s
the most crucial point. That’s the point that will be the subject
of the negotiation.
“The UK today has
access to the single market because it respects the four freedoms. If
it wishes to remain within the single market it is its decision to
know how far and how it will have to abide by the four freedoms.
“None can be
separated from the other. There cannot be freedom of movement of
goods, free movement of capital, free movement of services if there
isn’t a free movement of people … It will be a choice facing the
UK – remain in the single market and then assume the free movement
that goes with it or to have another status.”
Hollande’s
comments suggest it will be difficult for the UK to fulfil the desire
of Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, and other prominent leave
figures during the referendum campaign, who favoured access to the
single market while imposing limits on immigration.
The French president
offered more support over May’s decision to wait until next year
before triggering article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, which formally
kicks off the two-year process of the UK leaving the EU.
Earlier in Dublin,
Hollande had demanded an explanation for the delay, saying: “We
understood it would be September, then October and then December.
Justifications will have to be given.”
However, he appeared
to soften his language after the bilateral talks with May, saying he
“understood the government that has just been formed needs this
time”.
He went on: “But
let me repeat, the sooner the better in the common interests of
Europe … because uncertainty is the greatest danger. When economic
players doubt the conditions under which the UK will leave and the
relationship that will be maintained, there can be risks for
stability of the European economy and therefore for jobs.”
The two leaders
found most consensus on the issue of maintaining the existing Le
Touquet agreement that means UK border checks are conducted in Calais
in an attempt to control the flow of refugees and migrants across the
channel.
During the EU
referendum campaign, May, David Cameron and a French government
minister all suggested this could be in jeopardy and the border might
move to the UK if there was a vote for Brexit. These claims were
dismissed by leave campaigners as “project fear”.
On Thursday, May and
Hollande said they were completely committed to maintaining the
Calais border.
May said: “We have
discussed the Le Touquet agreement, and President Hollande and indeed
interior minister [Bernard] Cazeneuve have both been very clear from
their point of view that they wish the Le Touquet agreement to stay.
I want the Le Touquet agreement to stay.
“I know there are
those who are calling for it to go. There are those within France who
are calling for it to go … Le Touquet is of benefit I believe to
both the UK and France and we are both very clear, Britain now having
taken the decision to leave the EU, Le Touquet agreement should
stay.”
“There is no doubt
that the French people who reside in the UK will be able to continue
to work there and that the British people in France will be able to
continue to work there and spend as much time as they wish,” he
said.
May has held off
making a promise guaranteeing the right to stay of all EU citizens in
the UK until she gets pledges from other nations that the rights of
Britons will be preserved.
“I expect to be
able to do so, and the only situation in which that wouldn’t be
possible is if British citizens’ rights in European member states
were not being protected,” she said.
May arrived in Paris
after her visit to Berlin for similar talks with Angela Merkel. The
German chancellor struck a sympathetic note about it being right and
necessary for Britain to take its time with preparations for
triggering article 50. Unlike Hollande, Merkel did not rule out a
deal that combines some level of access to the single market with
controls on immigration.
In the coming
months, May is expected to visit more EU leaders as she lays the
foundations for negotiations on Brexit, even though Brussels has
banned formal and informal talks until article 50 is activated.
Cameron used his
final meeting with EU leaders in Brussels earlier this month to warn
that the British public would be unwilling to accept any deal that
did not include limits on the free movement of people.
But there are
concerns among other member states that ceding ground to Britain on
the issue of immigration controls – which became a central theme of
the referendum campaign – would strengthen the hand of
anti-immigrant parties in other countries. Marine Le Pen, the leader
of France’s far right Front National, was jubilant after the Brexit
vote, calling it the most important moment since the fall of the
Berlin Wall.
May has handed the
tough task of negotiating the details of the EU departure to David
Davis, who will run Whitehall’s new Brexit ministry, while two more
Brexiters, Liam Fox and Johnson, have been put in charge of trade and
foreign affairs, both key departments as the practical challenges of
negotiating an exit emerge.
Brexit campaigners
appeared to suggest during the hard-fought referendum campaign that
Britain would be able to maintain tariff-free access to EU markets
while also “taking back control” of migration flows, but refused
to identify what specific type of relationship they had in mind.
Cameron fought hard
for the right to control migration during his renegotiation of
Britain’s relationship with the rest of the EU last year and won
some changes, including the right to gradually phase in benefits for
new arrivals from other member states. But that deal lapsed when the
public voted to leave and the rest of the EU is now keen to hear what
Britain’s demands will be for the article 50 process, which could
take up to two years and which all countries must be willing to sign
up to.
May was given a
military welcome in Paris for the talks, which lasted around an hour.
After the press conference, May and Hollande attended a working
dinner where the leaders were served lobster salad, veal with
spinach, vanilla mousse with strawberries and cheese.
Why
France is unlikely to spoil the Brexit party
François
Hollande welcomed Theresa May to Paris but he has his eyes firmly
fixed on how to win the Brexit negotiations.
By
Pierre Briançon
7/22/16, 5:30 AM CET
PARIS — François
Hollande was all smiles and compliments Thursday night for his first
encounter with U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, especially as she was
gracious enough to demonstrate in her very first sentences her
mastery of the French language.
Gone for the moment
was the desire to punish Britain in order to halt the march of
anti-EU forces elsewhere on the Continent that had characterized the
French position prior to the June 23 referendum. Political tumult in
the U.K. following the Brexit vote has suppressed France’s need to
make an example of their neighbors from across the Channel.
Behind the mutual
celebration by both leaders of Franco-British relations, and despite
the French president’s gratitude for British solidarity in the
fight against terrorism, it was clear that both leaders anticipate
tough negotiations over the terms of the U.K.’s exit in the months
ahead.
What Hollande
couldn’t say out loud is that it is unlikely that France will
ultimately play the spoiler. Paris is keen to keep strong bilateral
ties with London and besides, French interests are closely aligned
with those of Germany and other European major powers.
Instead France is
eying ways to win.
French pragmatism
While May has
indicated she won’t begin the Brexit process before 2017, the
French government had repeatedly stressed since the referendum that
negotiations over Britain’s future relationship with the rest of
the EU should begin as soon as possible.
What has gone
from the French position in the last weeks is the original intention
to “make Britain pay” to serve as an example to others.
That appeared to put
Paris at odds with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who seemed more
understanding towards the British position when May travelled to
Berlin Wednesday.
But the timing
doesn’t depend on either Hollande or Merkel. As the French leader
acknowledged Thursday the date will be of May’s choosing since she
kicks off the process by triggering Article 50, the EU’s divorce
clause.
Hollande is
practical enough to know he doesn’t have much leverage over her
choice of when to do it. He even admitted at a joint press conference
at the Elysée Palace that Britain’s new prime minister would need
“time to prepare.”
French diplomatic
efforts will instead focus on the substance of future negotiations,
namely the trade-off to be offered (or forced on) the U.K. for
participating in the single market.
On Thursday night,
Hollande reiterated the French view, which is also the official EU
view: The single market is based on four freedoms – of goods,
capital, services and people. “The UK must abide by the four
freedoms if it wants to be part of the single market. None of them
can be separated from the other,” he said.
Or, as translated
for POLITICO by an ever-helpful French diplomat: “This has nothing
to do with feelings. It’s just business.”
What has gone from
the French position in recent weeks is the original intention to
“make Britain pay” to serve as an example to others. The extent
of the post-referendum crisis in the U.K., the semblance of political
chaos in the days following the vote, the likely economic impact on
the U.K. of the current uncertainty, are now seen as strong enough
deterrents to any other country contemplating a similar “exit”
from Europe, the diplomat noted.
And what the French
see as the spectacular “reprise en mains” by May of the agenda,
as well as her mastery of the political process, have reassured Paris
that there is in London “someone to do business with,” said the
same diplomat, knowingly paraphrasing Margaret Thatcher’s line
about the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.
Eyes on the City
Despite his focus on
the single market, the French president also appeared to offer the
British prime minister one possible path to compromise.
Hollande seemed to
hint that it might be possible for May to simply seek an improvement
to the terms her predecessor David Cameron got on immigration when he
renegotiated Britain’s relationship with the EU prior to the
referendum vote. This could give May a way to meet British voters’
desire to reduce immigration and still remain almost a full member of
the single market.
On the substance of
the future negotiations, which both Merkel Wednesday and Hollande
Thursday repeated could not possibly start before the U.K. triggers
Article 50, Hollande has been and remains explicit on the trade-off
he will seek for restrictions of movement: The end of the so-called
“financial passport” that allows EU-based banks and fund managers
to market their wares in all of the member countries without
additional, national regulations.
“They want to
make sure national governments keep the control of the talks and that
the EU bureaucracy doesn’t decide to play tough on London for the
sake of it.” — Source close to the Elysée.
“If May really
proves less City-friendly than Cameron and [former chancellor of the
exchequer George] Osborne, she might be easy to convince on this,”
quipped a French treasury advisor mentioning the “social justice”
speech that the new U.K. premier made on the steps of 10, Downing
Street on the day she took office.
But “whatever the
ultimate outcome,” he added, “it may look nothing like what we
are thinking of now. Those are just starting positions, everybody
stakes his ground.”
Hollande, of course,
by now knows that he may not be the one who will see the negotiations
through, as his chances of being re-elected to a second term next
year are distant at best. That doesn’t mean that his successor will
hold different views. Most of the French right’s conservative
leaders have expressed the same opinions, in line with traditional
French diplomacy.
On one thing Paris
and Berlin agree and that is the need to sideline Brussels. Hollande
and Merkel are reading “strictly from the same page,” a source
close to the Elysée said before May’s visit. “They want to make
sure national governments keep the control of the talks and that the
EU bureaucracy doesn’t decide to play tough on London for the sake
of it.”
That, on the other
hand, he added, is “easier said than done.”
Authors:
Pierre Briançon
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