A senior EU official tells @rtenews tonight there will be "no breakthrough" on the backstop this week. This is not just because the UK cabinet is divided over whether there should be a NI-specific backstop as a final safety net, or because of the termination clause...
...but because the UK-wide customs arrangement brings with it a whole spectrum of small print, on "level playing field" issues, such as competition rules, state aid, social, environmental, health & safety rules that member states will want assurances on before they sign up to it.
In other words, the EU is not going to grant tariff- and quota-free access to the UK for a temporary customs arrangement without assurances on those level playing field issues.
"This bare bones EU-UK customs agreement," says the senior official, "defining it in terms of a single customs territory, all that has yet to be drawn up. The EU is looking for the details of that proposal, of what that means, and they’re waiting for Olly Robbins to tell them..."
So the UK-wide temporary customs arrangement (TCA) implies alignment, level playing field issues, things that bring you de facto close to the single market. The Task Force expected technical papers from the UK last week but they were not forthcoming.
The view in Brussels is that in seeking the TCA the UK hadn't bargained for the conditions that would be attached, and Theresa May will find it difficult, if not impossible, to get that thru the cabinet tomorrow...
That runs the clock down further. "If there is no agreement in the next week at technical + services level, there’s no chance of a summit in November. By this day week you’d need it at the latest. You could move the summit to the last few days of the month...
"...but you’d still require all of the various work to be completed by next Monday at the latest, before you could have a summit."
If things are not coming together then, in other words, no deal planning looks like a much more realistic scenario.
If things are not coming together then, in other words, no deal planning looks like a much more realistic scenario.
