Unsurprisingly, little progress. Now at the stage where political intervention is needed. Barnier referencing political declaration is tiresome for a number of reasons. Not least because EU used to see it as entirely irrelevant & they are cherry picking it as well. Thread 1/
For much of past three years the EU side have seen the political declaration as a sop to the UK to try to help get the Withdrawal Agreement through Parliament. They have not only briefed this but made it clear to those of us in negotiations. Position now is quite hypocritical 2/
Barnier cites para 77 of the PD. But he always only mentions the first sentence not the second sentence, as highlighted below. This is surely just as equally important. 3/ 
This was largely lifted from the PD negotiated under Theresa May, whom I advised. It was obvious to all involved at the time it was fudge to account for differing views. The EU always focused on the connectedness, while the UK focused on the scope/depth of the relationship. 4/
So the idea that it obviously meant one thing as presented by Barnier is not in my view correct. Furthermore, even if both sentences are taken as being concrete, it is not obvious why one trumps the other as Barnier suggests. Its his subjective reading of the PD 5/
Barnier referenced lack of progress on fisheries given PD sets aim of reaching agreement by July. However, he continues to ignore the commitment to seek to take financial services equivalence decisions by end of June. Focusing on what he cares about but it is still selective 6/
All this said, to be fair to Barnier in the Q&A he signalled bit more flexibility on state aid & fishing, which could set the scene for movement in the high level conference or later this year. I hope UK will reciprocate by showing some flexibility as well 7/
Finally, UK narrative on reliance on precedence just as tiresome as EU reliance on PD. Equally been shown to be untrue as UK goes further than precedence in many areas (tariffs, mutual recognition, RoOs, road haulage etc). We should look past this rhetoric from both sides 8/ ENDS
