EU threatens Theresa May on trade
talks and its citizens' rights
European leaders take hard line on
Brexit at special summit, agreeing unanimously on rigid stance in just four
minutes
Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Saturday 29 April 2017 19.55 BST Last modified on Sunday 30
April 2017 00.55 BST
The European Union has called on Theresa May to provide
immediate “serious and real” guarantees to its citizens living in Britain. The
EU leaders took just four minutes at a special summit to agree unanimously an
uncompromising opening stance in the Brexit negotiations.
Leaders said they would not discuss a future trade deal with
the British government until “sufficient progress” is made on the issues of
Britain’s estimated €60bn divorce bill, the rights of EU nationals in the UK,
and the border in Ireland.
The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, told
reporters at the special summit in Brussels that EU citizens in Britain were
the number one priority, and that he had discussed the need for Britain to now
live up to its warm words regarding EU citizens during a dinner with the prime
minister in Downing Street last week.
“We have already prepared a text that could be adopted
immediately if our British friends would be willing to sign it, but that
probably won’t happen,” Juncker told reporters, adding that there was an
element of tragedy in the situation of some in the UK.
“I have the impression sometimes that our British friends,
not all of them, do underestimate the technical difficulties we have to face,”
he said, adding that May had told him, to each of his questions about the
future: “Be patient and ambitious.”
Donald Tusk, president of the European council, whose
members comprise the EU states, added: “For the past weeks we have heard from
our British friends, also during my visit in London, that they are ready to
agree on this issue quickly.
“I would like to state very clearly that we need real
guarantees for our people who live, work and study in the UK and the same goes
for the Brits. The commission has prepared a full list of the rights and
benefits that we want to guarantee for those affected by Brexit. To achieve
sufficient progress we need a serious British response.”
Donald Tusk speaks
during a press conference after an EU Council meeting on 29 April about Brexit.
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Donald Tusk speaks
during a press conference after an EU Council meeting on 29 April about Brexit.
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
The two EU leaders were speaking after European leaders
agreed in record time to adopt nine pages of negotiating guidelines at a
special summit in Brussels.
Responding to the summit’s conclusions, David Davis, the
secretary of state for exiting the European Union, said that he feared the
coming talks would be “confrontational” and echoed May’s comments last week
about member states “lining up to oppose us”.
He said: “Both sides are clear: we want these negotiations
to be conducted in a spirit of goodwill, sincere cooperation and with the aim
of establishing a close partnership between the UK and the EU going forward.
“But there is no doubt that these negotiations are the most
complex the UK has faced in our lifetimes. They will be tough and at times even
confrontational. There are already people in Europe who oppose these aims and
people at home trying to undermine them. That is why it is so important that
the UK has the right leadership in place.”
Speaking in the margins of the summit, leaders had taken
turns all day to warn the British government that the EU was unified and would
fight hard for the interests of its member states. The French president, François
Hollande, told reporters: “There will inevitably be a price and a cost for
Britain; it’s the choice they made.
“We must not be punitive, but at the same time it’s clear
that Europe knows how to defend its interests, and that Britain will have a less
good position outside the EU than in the EU.”
Asked about her suggestion last week that some in the UK
were deluded about the coming talks, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said
she feared there was a lack of understanding about the EU’s resolve to only
talk about trade once the opening issues had been resolved.
Merkel also appeared unconvinced by May’s claim that a
landslide election victory would strengthen her negotiating position in the
talks when they start in June, although she applauded the prime minister for
calling it.
“The British prime minster thinks that a clear vote [in the
general election] will strengthen her position in the negotiations,” she said.
“It will certainly give her a very credible platform. The election has removed
this sword of Damocles over the negotiations.”
Other leaders also appeared bemused by the prime minister’s
claims about being empowered by an election triumph. Hollande, who is now in
his last week as president, said: “That is an election argument that I can
understand. But this is not an argument against the European Union. Why?
Because the bases, the principles, the objectives are already fixed: these will
be the lines that will be chosen by the negotiators and there will be no
others.”
Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, claimed May had
called the election to resolve an internal problem in the Conservative party.
She wanted “not a hard Brexit or a soft Brexit but Theresa’s
Brexit,” he said. Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, added: “I
wouldn’t want to intrude in the prime minister’s decisions but the fact is we
are wasting one month now.”
EU leaders at the summit also agreed a declaration that
would allow northern Ireland to swiftly rejoin the EU, in the event of a vote
for Irish unification. With polls showing that a majority of voters in Northern
Ireland want to stay part of the UK, the Irish taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said the
clause was not about triggering a poll.
“I have always been very clear that the conditions for a
referendum do not currently exist, but the endorsement of the principle, the
potential agreement of the Good Friday agreement is hugely important.”
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said it
was in Britain’s interests for the EU to be unified, as it would boost the
chances of a Brexit deal. “This extraordinary meeting shows the unity of the 27
on a clear line, but this unity is not directed against Britain; I think that
it is also in its interest,” he said.
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