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The EU is still debating exactly what it wants from its future relationship with the UK.
Ambassadors from the 27 EU nations tweaked and pulled at various parts of Brussels’ draft negotiating mandate during a meeting in the city on Wednesday. France called for tougher “level playing field” commitments that would keep the UK in line with EU rules.
Governments are also still discussing how to police flows of consumer data between Britain and the EU, so that the bloc’s privacy standards are not undermined.
But this fine-tuning will soon come to an end: ambassadors plan to complete their work on Monday, paving the way for the mandate to be signed off by European affairs ministers the following day.
The fruit of their labours will be a document that leaves a fundamental gulf between Britain’s and the EU’s ambitions. It is not just that the UK and the EU disagree over the details of what they are going to try to build together; it’s more like two people arguing over whether they should build a house or a car.
The EU’s vision of the future relationship is of a single overarching structure, encompassing everything from trade to security policy, with one dispute-settlement and arbitration system. The European Court of Justice would have a role to play whenever it comes to interpreting EU law.
In EU jargon, the model is known as an association agreement. It is the same legal form the EU has used with Ukraine and Georgia, although the substance of a deal with the UK would be different. EU officials argue that the association agreement model is flexible when it comes to content, but that it provides a way to avoid the kind of patchwork of standalone agreements that the bloc has with Switzerland.
It would be a unique construction — shaped to address Brussels’ concerns about the emergence of a major economic competitor on its doorstep. The level playing field conditions would be unlike anything the EU has put into other trade agreements with major economies. For one thing, the UK would be expected to continue applying the EU’s system of state-aid controls as if it were still a member state.
David Frost, the UK’s chief EU negotiator, has been clear that Britain does not just reject the level playing field: it is working on a different project altogether for the future relationship.
In a speech in Brussels on Monday, Mr Frost was at pains to stress that the country wants a standard trade deal along Canada lines (even if, as EU officials are fond of pointing out, Britain would also like greater market access, more regulatory co-operation, and a stable arrangement for its financial services sector).
Britain wants to get that deal and then speed off into its new future as an independent, sovereign country.
Boris Johnson’s government is ready and willing to talk with the EU about some non-trade related matters, such as security co-operation, but it does not want an overarching agreement that leaves it floating in the EU’s orbit.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs this week that Britain is no longer interested in negotiating on future foreign policy and defence co-operation, for example.
One EU official sums up the British plan as “a basic trade deal with bits that can be added later”.
These are not just philosophical differences — they create real, practical problems for the negotiations. Take the area of data sharing on security matters: how will it be possible for Britain and the EU to keep data flowing if the UK rejects any oversight from the European Court of Justice?
Brussels expects that one way this will manifest itself will be an almighty row about governance and enforcement. In other words, finding a dispute-settlement system for the future relationship that gives one side enough freedom, and the other enough certainty, to do a deal.
But locating that sweet spot is going to be very difficult.
Further reading
© Ingram Pinn/Financial Times
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron: Europe’s missed chance
“This month’s Munich Security Conference, the annual gathering of international security elites, focused on the pervasive sense of drift and fragmentation in western democracies. “Westlessness,” the organisers called it. Think of the accretion of bad news represented by US president Donald Trump’s belligerent unilateralism, European powerlessness in the face of chaos in the Middle East, Brexit and rising political extremism in Europe’s democracies.” (Philip Stephens, FT)
Brexit Britain gambles on a new migration policy (FT View)
Hard numbers
UK retail sales rebound after longest contraction on record.
Source: Economy - ft.com
