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1) In debate about renegotiating the text of the UK’s withdrawal agreement from EU it’s important to remember it’s a draft text not a final one but it’s been agreed by the cabinet and is result of 19 months of EU-U.K. negotiations. No appetite in EU to make fundamental changes
2) Merkel said to Bundestag: “We have a text agreed already between EU and U.K. That’s why for me, at the moment, there’s no question about whether we should continue to negotiate something.”
3) Note that she said “for now” . What I’m hearing is that EU intends to stick to this text till vote in Commons. If text is voted down, then EU open to “tweaks” but source close to Macron says “nothing fundamental”
4) If it came to a general elex or to a second referendum then EU would likely be open to putting U.K. leaving process on ice a) to avoid no deal Brexit b) in hope U.K. would change its mind and stay
5) EU countries have also been examining to draft withdrawal text and some have told Barnier they want some “tweaks” too...
6) Barnier’s first duty in his role is to ‘serve’ EU member states but he’s also been asked to get a deal with U.K. if possible. His response to U.K. talk of fundamental renegotiation of parts of withdrawal text has been: EU should not enter into some kind of bargaining process
