May’s
pre-Brexit expats plan nixed by Merkel
London
is kidding itself if it thinks this will be a negotiation among
equals.
By PAUL
TAYLOR 11/29/16, 5:25 AM CET Updated 11/29/16, 8:33 AM CET
BERLIN — Angela
Merkel rebuffed a request by Theresa May for assurances that Britons
living in the European Union and EU citizens living in the U.K. would
keep their rights to residence, work and healthcare after Brexit.
The German
chancellor’s polite but firm “Nein” when the two leaders met in
Berlin on November 18 dashed the British prime minister’s hopes of
a quick informal deal to reassure expatriates on both sides of the
Channel that they will not lose out when Britain leaves the EU, three
people familiar with the matter said.
British officials
had hoped to create some goodwill ahead of exit negotiations,
expected to start next year once May triggers the EU’s Article 50
divorce clause, by taking the issue of citizens already living in
each other’s countries off the table. The issue affects some 1.2
million Britons and their families resident in the other 27 EU
countries, and as many as 3.3 million EU citizens resident in the
U.K., including almost one million Poles.
A senior European
Commission official had quietly encouraged the initiative in a
private capacity, both to improve mutual understanding with London
and to avoid any suggestion that European citizens were being taken
hostages in the negotiations. If the EU were to say it was ready to
safeguard the position of Britons living in Europe, it would gain the
moral high ground in the talks, the argument went.
The pro-Brexit Daily
Telegraph reported last week that British ministers had told business
leaders all but a few EU countries were ready to accept the outline
of a reciprocity deal possibly as early as at the next EU summit on
December 15-16.
But Merkel had
already put paid to the British bid by then, sticking to her mantra
that there can be no pre-negotiations before Britain tenders its
formal notice of intention to leave the Union, setting in motion a
two-year countdown to its withdrawal.
German Chancellor
Angela Merkel waiting for the arrival of European leaders at the
Chancellery on November 18, 2016 in Berlin, Germany | Alexander
Koerner/Getty Images
May’s push for
such a declaration was a rare instance in which, behind closed doors
with an EU peer, she has gone beyond bland generalities about her
intentions, summed up in stock phrases such as “Brexit means
Brexit” and wanting to secure the best deal for Britain that convey
no sense of a clear strategy.
A German government
spokesman declined to discuss specifics of the Merkel-May meeting,
which took place while U.S. President Barack Obama was making a
farewell visit to Germany, but said Berlin had made clear its full
support for the EU’s “no negotiations without notification”
stance. A spokesperson for May’s office said: “I don’t think
we’d get into details of private meetings,” noting that the prime
minister had made clear publicly what she wants to achieve in terms
of “reciprocal rights.”
Mutual mistrust
The tactical
thinking behind the German rejection speaks volumes about the depth
of mistrust between Berlin and London, and about Merkel’s
determination to put preserving the unity of the other 27 EU members
ahead of the future relationship with a departing Britain.
Officials were
concerned that London would try to salami-slice the negotiations,
seeking to retain most of the advantages of EU membership while
rejecting obligations such as allowing continued free movement of
people, accepting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice,
implementing all EU rules and continuing to pay into the EU budget.
Berlin insists those
conditions for market access also apply in full to any interim or
transitional arrangements after Britain leaves the bloc and before it
has completed negotiating a new trade relationship.
In German eyes, any
early, partial deal on citizens’ rights might encourage May to play
for time and delay triggering Article 50. It might also embolden
those in the U.K. government and the Conservative Party who believe
Brussels can be bounced into accepting continued British access to
the single market without too many concessions.
May signaled to
business leaders last week that she understood their need to avoid
economic ties falling off a “cliff edge” when the two-year exit
talks end in 2019, in a comment widely interpreted as indicating she
was leaning toward seeking a phasing out of single market access
after several years rather than a sudden stop. But German
policymakers are not convinced it is politically feasible for her to
accept the conditions, given her party conference commitments to
control immigration and regain full legislative and judicial
sovereignty when Britain leaves.
The Germans argue it
makes more sense for the EU to keep the trade-off on British
expatriates’ rights up its sleeve as a sweetener during the most
painful phase of the negotiations, likely to occur in 2018.
A prior deal on
citizens might even have raised the temptation for London to walk
away after two years without an exit agreement and renege on the bill
for its residual liabilities to the Union, which the European
Commission Brexit team has provisionally estimated at around €60
billion. Besides, committing to continue giving reciprocal free
healthcare cover to more than 300,000 mostly elderly British citizens
is a heavy burden for a convalescent economy like Spain’s.
Waiting for the pain
The Germans argue it
makes more sense for the EU to keep the trade-off on British
expatriates’ rights up its sleeve as a sweetener during the most
painful phase of the negotiations, likely to occur in 2018. It was
naïve for the British to expect the issue could be taken out of the
overall context. By then, Britain could be gripped by a
Brexit-induced slowdown, with foreign financial firms moving jobs
from the City to the eurozone and inflation due to the pound’s
slide eating into living standards.
They are convinced
that Britain will only negotiate realistically once the weakness of
its hand has sunk in with the Conservative leadership and pro-Brexit
voters, many of whom maintain that Europe needs the U.K. as much as
the U.K. needs the EU, and seem to believe that Britain can continue
to enjoy the key benefits of the single market without the
constraints.
Seen through that
prism, cutting a quick deal on citizens’ rights might have
perpetuated illusions in London that this is a negotiation among
equals, rather than a lopsided situation in which Britain, having
voted to leave the club, is dependent on the goodwill of all 27
former EU partners.
“It is the British
who decided to leave the EU, not the EU that is leaving Britain. So
they can’t now say they want to keep just the bits they like and
discard the rest,” said a person familiar with Merkel’s thinking.
Paul Taylor writes
POLITICO‘s Europe At Large column. Charlie Cooper in London
contributed additional reporting.
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