Fisheries - and a comment on negotiating within a complex negotiating setting (short thread)
These days all negotiations go back to the letter that the UK Chief negotiator sent? How should you think about the letter?
The EU is a multilevel system (federal states are too, but different). Treaty negotiations involves both the EU level and member states. The member states give the mandate. They have to agree to the treaty in the end. The Commission negotiates. It also has to agree.
This means for the negotiation partner: If you can move within the mandate grate. If not, you sort of have a problem. The best way to get the mandate changed: convince the commission. Work with and convince member states.
What happens if one side blocks? Well, you try to pressure the other internally, try to get the commission to help with member states. And the other way around.
Publicly attacking another side causes problems, though. If you have not built consensus beforehand, doing it now will be much more difficult. The thread by @tconnellyRTE shows us two things in this regard.
First of all the harmful effect: convincing member states is now much harder. But there’s a surprising silver lining - even though Barnier was attacked, Barnier holds the course and tries to get a deal, trying to work with member states.
