Am not first to comment on this today but below observation by Michael Gove that #coronavirus will focus EU minds on post #Brexit trade deal is delusional. It distracts EU leaders all the more from something that was not top of in-tray even before COVID-19 politicshome.com/news/article/c…
There is logic in assuming the EU worries about economic effect of #coronavirus . The UK imports from EU more than it exports to bloc. There is European interest in keeping that business going esp amongst closest trade partners eg Ireland, NL BUT /2
a) not at any price b) this is not more of a priority now than before Covid-19. EU priority right now is to get past health crisis and help single market back on feet. To protect and boost single market rather than agree trade terms with UK the EU believes weakens the market /3
Remember many member states do little business of significance with U.K. and even big powers Germany and France who do trade a lot with UK, the figures are small compared to what they earn out of single market as a whole /4
In the immediate term the focus of Merkel, Macron et al is definitely not Brexit. It’s to try to navigate #coronavirus crisis w political reputation intact, population as unscarred as possible, while performing damage limitation on national economy first then eurozone as whole /5
