“BREXIT is so fascinating!” exclaims a French official. Few Europeans
wanted Britain to quit the European Union. But now that it is happening,
foreign ministries and policy units across the EU are relishing the
task ahead. As an intellectual exercise, managing the multifaceted
complexities of Britain’s departure from the EU offers the kind of
satisfaction rarely found in policy work. As a historic negotiation
without precedent—no country has left the EU before, let alone one of
Britain’s size and stature—it is a wonderful CV-builder. In Brussels,
where the talks will take place, officials are scrambling to involve
themselves with what one calls “the sexiest file in town”.
The preparations for Brexit on either side of the English Channel offer a
Homeric parable of chaos and order. In Britain Theresa May, the prime
minister, exudes swanlike calm, restricting her utterances on Brexit to
warm banalities. But below the surface her government is paddling
furiously to avoid being submerged by the awesome bureaucratic task
bequeathed to it by Britain’s voters. One leaked note from a consultancy
portrays a flailing government that needs up to 30,000 more civil
servants to manage Brexit. Mrs May says she will notify the EU of
Britain’s intention to leave under Article 50 of the EU treaty by the
end of March 2017. That leaves barely three months to settle basic
questions such as whether Britain should aim to stay in the EU’s customs
union.
The contrast with the EU’s institutions, and the larger capitals, is
striking. The 27 remaining EU countries quickly established a common
line towards Britain on matters like the indivisibility of the EU’s
single market. At a summit on December 15th, as The Economist went to
press, they were due to issue a formal declaration outlining the format
for the talks to come. The Brussels institutions have largely
established their respective roles, bar a wobble from the European
Parliament, and now spend their days in quasi-academic contemplation of
trade models or security co-operation protocols as they wait for the
games to begin. Officials everywhere insist that their priority will be
preserving the interests of the EU, not keeping Britain happy. “This is a
negotiation where we have to defend Europe, not undo it,” says Guy
Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit point-man.
European officials have refused to engage with Britain until Mrs May
triggers Article 50. But they observe goggle-eyed the spectacle
unfolding across the Channel. Some British ministers appear to believe
that the entire relationship can be recast, rather than merely the
divorce settlement finalised, in the two-year period Article 50 allows.
European negotiators who think it is essential to act as one are
staggered to hear some ministers cling to the delusion that Germany’s
need to sell cars to British motorists will ensure that Mrs May secures a
good deal.
Gloom is thus descending on the European side. The EU will probably
insist on settling the terms of Britain’s withdrawal before discussing
future arrangements, and each is ripe for the fiercest of rows. Top of
the list is the departure bill that the European Commission, which will
lead the talks on behalf of the EU, will place before Britain. The
commission puts the sum at up to €60bn ($64bn), roughly equivalent to
three-quarters of Britain’s projected budget deficit for 2016-17.
Brexiteer diehards, and their allies in the pit-bull press, will
transfer their fury from the domestic “Remoaners” they accuse of holding
up Brexit to perfidious Europeans making outrageous demands. One EU
official puts the chances of Britain walking out of the talks next year
at 50%.
Even if catastrophe can be averted, the negotiations will offer endless
opportunities for rancour. Take the question of what to do with the 2.8m
EU citizens living in Britain and the 1.2m Britons in the rest of the
EU. At first blush it seems simple: both sides agree to guarantee the
ongoing rights of citizens who arrived before a given date—perhaps the
notification of Article 50. Indeed, Mrs May has sought to strike such a
deal before beginning the formal withdrawal talks (concerned that she
was seeking to play divide-and-rule, her European counterparts rebuffed
her).
But closer inspection reveals a never-ending string of complexities. Do
governments have the administrative wherewithal to process applications
for permanent residence? Will the children of EU citizens have the right
to cheap university tuition? What about accrued pensions or other
benefits? None of these questions is intractable. But each requires
detailed negotiations and technical work. The same goes for other
matters to be tackled in the withdrawal talks, from the pensions of
British Eurocrats to the management of safety at Britain’s nuclear
plants. Untangling a 43-year-old relationship, it turns out, is
devilishly complicated.
Triumph of the won’t?
This in turn explains why concluding a separation deal within two years
will not be easy. (In fact the months needed for procedural matters and
ratification will cut the negotiation time to around 15 months.) The
scale of the task, and the economic thump many Europeans think is
heading Britain’s way—inflation, diverted investment and swooning public
finances—mean some still harbour a hope Brexit may be averted. But that
misreads the British mood. If things turn sour the blame will be heaped
not on Brexit, but on the obstructionist EU.
The ingredients for Brexit—a departing country confused about its
leverage, a club distracted by other problems and determined to avoid
more fractures, a procedure without precedent, a tight deadline—make a
combustible mix. Yet both sides should feel the historic weight of these
talks. Although Britain will be the first victim if things go wrong, a
club assailed by crisis on all sides knows it cannot afford to oversee a
Brexit debacle, however fascinating the exercise. For the EU, at least,
that means placing hope in a British government that it fears may not
warrant it. “From a rational point of view, we can’t fail,” says an
official in Brussels. “But I’m not sure the rationality is there in the
UK.”
Read more: Charlemagne: The EU’s Brexit negotiators prepare for disaster | The Economist
