First
published on Caglecartoons.com, The Netherlands, October 1, 2020 | By Joep
Bertrams
EU leaders sour on chances of Brexit deal
Pessimism pervades across all EU institutions at the
end of the last scheduled round of talks between London and Brussels.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN AND BARBARA MOENS 10/2/20, 6:49 PM CET Updated 10/2/20, 6:50 PM CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-leaders-summit-see-slim-chance-of-brexit-deal/
Brussels is
clear: the U.K. has lost the room and — maybe — its chances for a trade deal
with it.
Brexit was
just a brief information point at the European Council summit which wrapped
Friday but the mood was clear around the leaders' table, EU officials and
diplomats said.
"When
I try to take to feel the temperature in the European Council, what is the
temperature between the member states — we are united, no doubt on that — but
there is the impression more and more that it will be very difficult to get a
deal with the U.K.," said a senior EU official. "Because we don't
have the impression that they put on the table a real margin in order to make a
deal possible."
The senior
official cited "this growing feeling" among some leaders "that
maybe, maybe a no-deal can be less worse than a bad agreement."
German
Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a somewhat more positive tone, telling
reporters following the summit that the deal struck between the U.K. and Norway
on fisheries earlier this week showed Britain remains on a “constructive path”
in negotiations with neighbors.
"We want a deal because we think it is better to
have a deal as neighbors" — Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission
president
Commission
President Ursula von der Leyen, who delivered an update on negotiations to EU
heads of state and government, was pessimistic. She told the summit’s closing
news conference she would speak by videoconference with U.K. Prime Minister
Boris Johnson Saturday and hoped for a deal but that difficult issues remained
unresolved, especially the debate over the so-called level playing field, which
Brussels wants in order to ensure the U.K. can’t undercut the bloc, and a fight
over fishing quotas in British waters.
"We
want a deal because we think it is better to have a deal as neighbors,"
von der Leyen said. "Also on top, in these COVID times, with devastating
impact on the economies, it is good to have a deal — but not at any price. And
mainly the topic of the level playing field, how can we make sure that it
exists between both economies, and the question of fisheries are very difficult,
so we will see how we progress on that."
Von der
Leyen also noted that the EU had initiated legal proceedings against the U.K.
over its controversial Internal Market Bill, which would allow London to
unilaterally unpick some aspects of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, which the
two sides agreed last year.
Privately,
according to officials present, von der Leyen warned leaders that no-deal, in
which the two sides fall back on World Trade Organization rules, would be
better than caving to British demands and ending up with a bad, lopsided
agreement. "A bad deal would mean no level playing field which would be a
threat to our economy," von der Leyen said, according to an official.
For his
part, Johnson told the BBC Friday that he hoped for a deal but “it’s up to our
friends [in the EU].”
“They’ve
done a deal with Canada — long way away — of a kind that we want, why shouldn’t
they do it with us, we’re so near, we’ve been members for 45 years.”
During the
summit, leaders also heard a brief assessment from Irish Prime Minister Micheál
Martin, who urged them to stand firm against London's efforts to undermine the
divorce deal.
The message
from the bloc's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, was consistent Friday when he
told a meeting of the European Parliament's U.K. Coordination Group that this
week's round of negotiations led to barely any progress, according to people
briefed on the meeting.
This week's
negotiations were the last formally scheduled round of talks before another
European Council summit in mid-October that was originally envisioned as the
decisive moment where leaders could approve a deal. The agreement would then
need ratification from the European and British parliaments before the current
transition period ends on December 31.
While von
der Leyen on Friday portrayed discussions over the implementation of the
Withdrawal Agreement as a “work strand,” the senior EU official said the
Internal Market Bill had poisoned the atmosphere around the Brexit talks for EU
heads of state and government, while unifying the EU27 even further.
"At
the European level, the U.K., they offered us a gift by taking this initiative
to start this process with this bill in the British parliament because it is a
demonstration that they are not respecting the international rule of law,"
the senior official said. "It puts them in a more difficult position and
it's also for us a clear support in order to remain united."
"For
us as the European Union, as member states," the senior official said,
"it's plain they will not respect what they have agreed in the framework
of the Withdrawal Agreement."
On
substance, too, the official said talks had stalled: "My impression is the
last weeks we didn't move a lot in this process of negotiations with the
U.K."
In written
statements after this week’s round, both chief negotiators stressed the
“serious divergences” on the sticking points of fisheries and level playing
field.
Barnier
recalled that an agreement on level playing field, fisheries and governance is
an EU key requirement to reach any sort of trade deal. The U.K.’s chief
negotiator David Frost was especially pessimistic on a fisheries deal, saying
that “the gap between us is unfortunately very large and, without further
realism and flexibility from the EU, risks being impossible to bridge.”
Jacopo
Barigazzi and Hans von der Burchard contributed reporting.
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