The European Commission presented the first draft of their Brexit negotiating guidelines on behalf of the 27 remaining EU countries.
The guidelines “define the framework for negotiations under Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union” and set out the overall positions and principles that the EU will pursue throughout the negotiation.
The member states have apparently mandated the Commission who appointed a team headed by Michel Barnier to negotiate within that framework. There will be no separate negotiations between individual member states and the UK.
The negotiating framework is designed, in true EU style, to kick the can of negotiations down the line, to a time after key national elections in France and Germany.
The guidelines state that “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot be settled separately”. This implies that matters such as the rights of EU nationals living in the UK, and of Britons living elsewhere in the EU, will only be well and truly settled once an overall exit deal is concluded even if both parties may agree on how to handle any one specific issue.
The guidelines also rule out a sector-by-sector approach to the single market, and state that the freedom of movement of goods, services, people, and capital of the single market are indivisible – and there can be no “cherry picking”.
These core principles will also apply to any interim arrangement, so nothing will change until full Brexit is implemented in two year’s time.
The negotiations will be phased and will continue only when ‘sufficient progress’ has been made a largely political decision on which the powerful member states (Germany) will exercise significant influence. .
The first phase of talks will address the disentanglement of the UK from the union, including dealing with Britain’s existing commitments to the EU; providing clarity and legal certainty to EU citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders; and coming up with “creative and flexible” solutions to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.
A trade agreement can only be discussed once the UK has formally exited the EU.
A transitional deal would probably require the UK to continue abiding by EU rules and principles.
Member states want to have legal certainty around the agreement on the withdrawal arrangement. For example, guarantees to protect EU nationals’ rights must be “must be enforceable and non-discriminatory”. This means that nationals of all EU member states must be treated equally. The document also implies that the EU will seek to guarantee the rights of EU citizens’ family members, as well as agreeing a cut-off point for future arrivals. All these points will have to be settled as part of the initial stage of talks.
The agreement on Britain’s financial and budget commitments should cover all legal and budgetary commitments as well as liabilities, including contingent liabilities.
The draft guidelines would imply that once Britain leaves the EU it will no longer be a participant in dozens of EU free trade agreements (FTAs). The document, though, leaves options open as to how these, and other arrangements that involve non-EU countries, could be dealt with.
The EU wants a trade agreement that is balanced, ambitious, and wide-ranging. However, such an arrangement cannot offer the same benefits as membership nor amount to participation in the single market or parts of it.
The guidelines provide some hints of matters that member states will look at to ensure a level playing field “in terms of competition and state aid, and must encompass safeguards against unfair competitive advantages through, inter alia, fiscal, social and environmental dumping”.
Partnerships in other areas, like the fight against terrorism and international crime as well as security and defence, have been decoupled, in choice of words at least, from a trade deal.
Over the course of the next few weeks, member states will consult on tweaking the guidelines before agreeing a final version at a summit in Brussels on 29 April. The guidelines are then firmed up into negotiating directives. Negotiations proper are expected to begin around the end of May.
The exit deal will require approval of a qualified majority in the European Council, while a trade agreement is likely to need the unanimous backing of member states as well as ratification by national parliaments.
Donald Tusk, the EC president said the negotiations would be “difficult, complex and somewhat confrontational,” adding that he planned to visit Theresa May in London before the European Council meeting in April.
Source: BBC
