For EU27, the hard part of Brexit
starts now
Remaining members show remarkable
unity in approving negotiation guidelines — but tougher challenges lie ahead.
By DAVID M.
HERSZENHORN 4/29/17, 2:52 PM
CET Updated 4/29/17, 7:06 PM CET
So far, so surprisingly good. But staying united on Brexit
is about to get harder for the EU’s remaining members.
From the moment last June when the British voted to ditch the
European Union, senior officials in Brussels have labored fastidiously to keep
the rest of the bloc together.
Given that disagreement, debate and discord are encoded in
the EU’s DNA — a genetic mutation supporters of the European project call
democracy — they have had remarkable
success.
At a summit in Brussels on Saturday, leaders of the 27
countries staying in the EU swiftly approved their guidelines for the Brexit
negotiations. It took one minute or four minutes, depending on whose account
you believe, but the key message from EU officials was that approval was quick
and unanimous.
“EU27 firm and fair political mandate for the #Brexit talks
is ready,” European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted.
Perhaps no one has been more astonished, or disappointed, at
the EU’s ability to hold together than U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who
warned this week that the 27 are lining up “to oppose us.”
And no one knows better than the 27 leaders gathered in
Brussels today how hard, if not impossible, it will be to keep up the unified
front as the two sides plunge into the detailed negotiations.
The risk of disagreement among the EU 27 on detailed aspects
of the Brexit negotiations is high
The risk of disagreement among the EU 27 on detailed aspects
of the Brexit negotiations is high | Virginia Mayo/AFP via Getty
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker predicted
that the Council would never be as unified as it was Saturday. “It was the
first and the last time that we were able to conclude in four minutes, so don’t
expect us to keep the same speed,” Juncker said at a news conference
immediately after the conclusion of the summit. “It will never happen again.”
Developing the guidelines was the relatively easy part,
largely because they emphasize points all EU countries agree on: the need to
negotiate withdrawal terms before agreement on future relations, and
prioritizing citizens’ rights, the financial settlement, and border concerns —
particularly for Ireland.
Now the hard part begins, and the risk of cracks is already
clear in how countries have begun jockeying for the two EU agencies, the
European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority, that will move
out of London.
“Mike Tyson said ‘the battle plan doesn’t survive the first
punch in the nose,'” a senior EU diplomat said. Actually, it was Joe Louis who
said “everybody has a plan until they get hit.” But point taken.
The punches are coming.
The risk of disagreement among the EU 27 on detailed aspects
of the Brexit negotiations is high, largely because the interests of individual
countries in the Brexit talks diverge as much as they do on any other issue.
Different priorities
When it comes to citizens’ rights, for instance, countries
such as Spain and Malta have a primary interest in the fate of British retirees
who live in those countries, and the related costs for health care and other
services. Countries such as Poland and Lithuania are far more concerned about
their own citizens now living and working in the U.K., who send crucial
remittances home.
One EU diplomat suggested that it would be better to let the
negotiators get on with their work and limit the number of meetings among
diplomats and higher-level officials.
Some EU countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, are
nearly as eager as the U.K. to move to discussions on a future free trade
agreement. France and Germany, the biggest economies of the 27, can afford to
demand that Britain feel some pain from leaving the EU’s single market.
“The most divisive
issues are not on the table yet,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevičius
said in an interview with POLITICO.
There were also signs that EU countries were beginning to
use Brussels’ desire for unity on Brexit as leverage in negotiating concessions
from the European institutions on other matters.
“Countries are already starting to link issues that are off
the table with the Brexit talks,” an EU diplomat said. “They start sending the
message that if you want to keep unity on Brexit then they have to get this or
this other thing on other dossiers. I expect that this will increasingly be the
case.”
As if to underscore the point, Italian Prime Minister Paolo
Gentiloni told reporters at the summit that maintaining unity on Brexit would
be easier going forward if the EU adjusted its policies on fiscal austerity and
migration.
To build the unity on display at Saturday’s summit, senior
EU officials began working immediately after the Brexit referendum last June.
They held an informal EU 27 summit in Bratislava, where they laid out a roadmap
for the Brexit process ahead. They also used the occasion of celebrating the
60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, one of the EU’s foundational documents,
to rally countries and express renewed common cause.
Tusk also acknowledged how unusual it was for the EU to have
everyone on the same page, and he expressed confidence that the togetherness
would last.
At the Commission, Juncker has also led a bold push to focus
the 27 on the EU’s common future by publishing a well-received White Paper
laying out various options for the bloc.
“The Commission’s approach has been particularly intelligent
and sophisticated,” an EU diplomat said. “You should see the Juncker White
Paper as a very important flip side process of the Brexit negotiations and the
need to ensure that member states buy into this project of continuing EU
unity.”
But the ability to continue such hand-holding of the 27
leaders will be vastly reduced once the formal negotiations begin in June. The
talks are expected to quickly become intensive, with negotiators potentially
working six days a week in a race against the clock to clinch an accord within
the two-year deadline set out in the EU treaties.
Devil in the directives
Already, the discussions among EU diplomats over more
detailed “negotiating directives” being developed by the European Commission
are more complicated than the talks on the broader guidelines.
One EU diplomat suggested that it would be better to let the
negotiators get on with their work and limit the number of meetings among
diplomats and higher-level officials.
“The original text was so well done, so well oriented, that
from Poland to Sweden there haven’t been substantial” differences, the diplomat
said. “Sometimes even if you have nothing to object [to], you start discussing
for the sake of discussing — so let’s better not even start getting into a
meeting-frenzy.”
Before and after Saturday’s summit, Tusk emphasized the
importance of holding ranks, and seemed to send May a subtle warning not to try
to split the 27, by saying that would be bad for Britain.
“If someone expected some divisions among the 27 would help
the U.K. to achieve something better for them, it’s a pure illusion,” Tusk said
at the closing news conference. “The only possible way to achieve a final
agreement between the 27 and the U.K. is unity of the 27. I have no doubts this
is the first and most important political condition.”
Jacopo Barigazzi, Jakob Hanke, Maïa de la Baume, Quentin
Airés, Carmen Paun and Joanna Plucinska contributed reporting.
