Dynamic deadlock

Dynamic deadlock

 By Jim Brunsden

February 25, 2020

The EU is ready to negotiate with Britain, but on terms that the UK has sworn to reject.

Ambassadors from the EU’s 27 nations on Monday agreed on the mandate that will guide the European Commission as it seeks to pull off the feat of negotiating a future relationship agreement with the UK by the end of this year.

Diplomats have been working on the text over the past few weeks, seeking to make sure that the union’s offer of a tariff-free, quota-free trade deal comes with enough caveats to protect Europe’s businesses.

The meeting on Monday focused on how exactly to frame EU demands that Britain agree to maintain a “level playing field” in areas such as environmental and social policy. France secured some final tweaks to the wording to emphasise that Britain should still stick closely to EU rules even as they evolve over time (here’s the text).

Paris and other capitals are concerned that the union will leap ahead in environmental regulation, for example, only to find that its companies can be undercut by British rivals that do not have to comply with the rules. The final text says that a future EU-UK trade deal should “uphold common high standards, and corresponding high standards over time”, saying this is needed to “ensure a sustainable and long-lasting relationship”.

In a drafting session of around an hour, ambassadors agreed to a request from France that the text should be clear that EU rules — “union standards” — should be used as “a reference point” for working out if the level playing field is respected.

The task of figuring out how all this is supposed to work in practice now falls to EU and UK negotiators. But Britain has already made clear that it sees the level playing field requirement as unacceptable.

A UK government spokesman underlined that the country’s “primary objective in the negotiations is to ensure we restore our economic and political independence”. This point will be emphasised when Britain publishes its negotiating stance on Thursday.

EU diplomats point out that the demands set out in the mandate do not go as far as requiring that Britain stay fully in sync with European law — such demands for “dynamic alignment” are limited to the area of state aid. But this will not matter much to the UK.

The fight over the level playing field will be one of the main themes of the opening months of negotiations. But there is no time to waste if a deal is going to be reached before the transition period expires. Negotiations are set to begin on March 2, with the aim of brokering an agreement within 10 rounds of talks.

Phil Hogan, the EU’s trade commissioner, warned last week that a deal would need to be reached by the end of October to be translated and approved in time. The clock is ticking.

jim.brunsden@ft.com; @jimbrunsden