Ireland’s Foreign Minister says progress in EU-UK trade talks “has not been good”. Adds: unless there is significant progress soon then both sides will reach “yet another crisis point in the Brexit negotiations, which from the Irish point of view is very, very serious” #Brexit /1
Ambassadors representing all EU countries meet EU chief negotiator @MichelBarnier this afternoon. He accuses the UK of selective engagement in trade talks ie avoiding issues it doesn’t like eg fishing quotas and competition regulations. UK says it’s not avoiding anything BUT /2
That the two sides are still far apart when it comes to those issues. A crisis has always been predicted in EU-UK trade talks especially with the tight timetable set by Boris Johnson to have the agreement signed off by end of this year but #COVIDー19 complicates matters BECAUSE/3
Political input will be necessary on EU and UK side in order to find compromise but #coronavirus means leaders have other pressing priorities. EU always says no deal will hurt UK most but Brussels will also want to avoid impact of no deal on EU businesses and reputation /4
EU warns UK about leaving things till the last minute in autumn in hope the time pressure will force EU to make deeper compromises on trade deal. Brussels says if there’s a second wave of #COVID19 infection in autumn then a trade deal with U.K. will hardly be an EU priority /5
Michael Gove suggested the economic impact on eurozone of covid19 could raise importance of trade deal with UK in EU eyes but EU diplomats insist when I ask them that the economic devastation makes the EU even more determined to protect and boost their single market ie NOT /7
Agreeing a trade deal with UK that would weaken the single market by allowing UK businesses a competitive advantage over EU ones. Hence EU insistence on “level playing field” rules on environmental law, state aid etc /8
UK argues it can’t be tied to EU apron strings as a sovereign nation + EU needs to trust them on fair competition BUT EU (privately) says trust is already low as UK doesn’t appear to be upholding its part of NIreland agreement (that replaced the Irish backstop - remember that?)/9
UK denies accusation. Says the Irish protocol needs to be implemented by end of year (ie not yet) and that it will honour its legal obligation as set out in the #Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. So EU asks for a clear timetable .. and so on.. Suffice to say frustration is clear ../10
On both sides and time is tight. EU not intimidated/moved by UK-US trade talks starting today. Brussels confident volume of UK trade with US can never replace usefulness of EU-UK relations so../11
Don’t expect great progress at next week’s round of EU-UK trade negotiations .. Even though we’re fast approaching the parties’ end of June deadline of judging where we are in talks. TRUE: /12
The UK has previously threatened to walk away if sees talks hitting a wall. And the EU has said end of June is cut-off point for agreeing fishing quotas without which it says there’ll be no deal at all BUT the Big Crunch/Crisis needs to comes first. Then see what happens /12
Which begs the question: Why do we need another crisis when already faced with huge issue of #COVID19 ?? Yet this is where UK-EU trade talks seem to be heading /13
