Brexit negotiators ‘very gloomy’ over trade deal, with talks on ‘knife’s edge.’ Again.
By William Booth and Michael Birnbaum,
LONDON — According to the players, Brexit talks are “on a knife’s edge.” It’s “down to the wire.” It’s “crunchtime.”
Sound familiar? It is. Even Brexit obsessives have lost track of how many “crunch times” have come and gone over these many years of negotiating Britain’s exit from the European Union.
The political press is reporting a “final push” this week, but in reality the sides have been pushing for a very long time.
Though Britain officially left the E.U. in January, it didn’t quite leave. What it did was begin an 11-month transition period, which ends midnight on Dec. 31. That was supposed to give the sides time to craft a trade deal to continue the orderly movement of goods and services. It was supposed to avoid the kind of last-minute chaos and uncertainty now unfolding.
Negotiators met in the London over the weekend and worked until late at night trying to strike a deal. Now the two sides are back in Brussels, at it again. “Time in very short supply,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman Jamie Davis.
If they fail to strike a deal, then Britain and Europe could soon see new customs duties, tariffs, border checks and quotas on goods — and an ignomious end to decades of the free, frictionless trade.
Britain crashing out without a deal could also undercut the open, invisible border today between the Republic of Ireland, a member of the E.U., and Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom.
President-elect Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have both warned Johnson not to do anything that could force a hard border to return to the island.
But the specific sticking points of the talks appear far more narrow.
The two sides are arguing over European access to fish in British waters, an emotional issue that taps into issues of sovereignty, even though the fisheries sector accounts for a tiny fraction of Britain’s gross domestic product.
Balint Porneczi
Bloomberg
Fishing boats sail into the harbor at Sete, France. Fishing rights remain one of the last obstacles of Brexit talks.
There have been suggestions that the number of European fishing trawlers in British seas could be slowly see their catch reduced. Should the transition period be three years (a British proposal) or 10 years (a French proposal)? Stay tuned.
The Europeans, too, are pressing to maintain a “level playing field,” to stop Britain from undercutting worker protections and environmental safeguards, or granting state subsidies to British businesses, potentially giving U.K. firms unfair advantages over their European competitors.
How are the talks going? Not good.
“The news is very downbeat,” Ireland’s foreign secretary Simon Coveney told his state broadcaster, RTE. He described the mood as “very gloomy.”
The Irish minister said, “I’d like to be giving more positive news, but, at the moment, these negotiations seem stalled, and the barriers to progress are still very much in place.”
The British Foreign Office was a little less glum. Minister James Cleverly told the BBC the U.K. would keep negotiating “for as long as we have available time or until we get an agreement.” He said negotiations “often go to the last minute of the last day.”
“We are a global player, we are one of the biggest economies in the world, we are a real prize for many countries,” Cleverly said. “I think if E.U. recognize this they will see that actually making a few small but significant concessions can get this deal done and that will be in their interest and in our interest.”
Hannah Mckay
Reuters
British minister James Cleverly said negotiations “often go to the last minute of the last day.”
Diplomats in Brussels, confronted with a spiraling series of crises, say that Brexit was long ago supplanted as the most burning issue they are facing.
Nor is it even the trickiest negotiation they are facing in Brussels this week, amid acrimonious talks with two of the European Union’s own members, Hungary and Poland. The two countries, whose commitment to democracy is increasingly shaky, have vetoed the entire $2 trillion E.U. budget because the other E.U. members want to make receiving funds conditional on adhering to the rule of law.
[E.U. issues its first rule-of-law report, angering leaders of Hungary and Poland]
Now E.U. ambassadors are receiving briefings almost every day from the bloc’s top negotiator, Michel Barnier, a lanky former French politician who has sounded increasingly glum about the prospects for the talks.
They are fast running out of time, since any deal would need to be approved by E.U. leaders and a handful of parliaments before Dec. 31.
“It was always going to go beyond any reasonable deadline,” said one finger-drumming senior E.U. diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to detail frustrations with the British approach.
E.U. officials familiar with the negotiations said that there was an agreement among themselves to halt talks Wednesday, regardless of their outcome, although such deadlines could easily be bargaining tactics.
Daniel Leal-Olivas
AFP/Getty Images
Anti-Brexit demonstrators hold placards as E.U. chief negotiator Michel Barnier walks into talks in London.
Another senior diplomat said Monday that differences remain on fisheries, rules about state aid to industries, and which body will enforce the deal — a summary that could easily have described most of the entire last year of negotiations.
“If that sounds familiar to you, it is because there has been no decisive progress made so far,” the diplomat said of the last few days of discussions, briefing reporters on the talks under ground rules of anonymity.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen plan to speak Monday evening. A Saturday night conversation lasted an hour but proved fruitless in the end: they told their negotiators to keep negotiating.
A downcast von der Leyen came out after the conversation to tell reporters that many differences remained.
“Whoever has a crystal ball and is able to predict how first-of-their kind negotiations will unfold and conclude deserves a job as scriptwriter in the movie industry or to write novels,” von der Leyen’s spokesman, Eric Mamer, told reporters on Monday.
As the negotiations continue in Brussels, Johnson government will continue to press for passage on Monday night of its controversial International Markets Bill in the House of Commons. The legislation is designed as a safety net to protect trade between England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. But its provisions break international law by reversing the original Brexit treaty signed last year.
Robert Perry
EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock
A proprietor of Arbroath Fisheries Ltd. Campbell Scott, handles hot smoked haddock in Arbroath, Scotland. The company use Scottish haddock sourced from the North Sea.
Will Jennings, a professor of political science at the University of Southampton, said it was “very difficult” to know what was going on in negotiations as “both sides are giving briefings that tell different stories.”
He said it was a “strange political moment” because “it’s incredibly salient for key decision-makers” but “the public seemed almost to have moved on.”
He said that there was a tendency, with E.U. and British politicians, “to take things to the brink and the last minute … like students handing in term papers” but it was also difficult to know whether the government really wants a deal. “The notions around Brexit are so wrapped up around sovereignty and taking back control” that there are “huge tensions around the integrity of Brexit and the grubby compromises of international negotiations.”
Jennings said Johnson wasn’t merely talking tough to appease some of the hardcore Brexiteers in his own party, although they are applying pressure. “The government is led by key advocates of the Leave vote, not the softer side of the Brexit coin,” he said.
Brexiteers outside the party have been applying pressure, too. Nigel Farage, a media personality and former head of U.K. Independence Party, tweeted that there was “no reasonable negotiation on offer,” as he disparaged French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Either we cave to Barnier and Macron or walk away,” Farage said.
Birnbaum reported from Riga, Latvia. Karla Adam in London and Quentin Aries in Brussels contributed to this report.
