There’s no need for Britain to panic over Brexit talks — not yet anyway.
After the European Council declared earlier this month that Brexit negotiations have not yet made “sufficient progress,” the good news is that all signs suggest the U.K. can expect Brussels to agree to kickstart talks on the future relationship at December’s summit. The bad news is that that’s when the real trouble will start.
There are still a number of issues to be resolved under the Article 50 talks. There is an increasing, albeit belated, recognition that the issue of the Irish border must be dealt with in the context of talks over trade. And when it comes to the rights of EU citizens living in the U.K., the role of the European Court of Justice remains a point of contention, even if both sides are edging toward some form of compromise.
Then, of course, there is the money. But for all the noise surrounding the issue, here too a compromise is within reach. The probability of continued payments during any transition period should also ease both sides toward a solution.
We’ll have lost a couple months, but ultimately this hardly matters. A trade deal could not have been negotiated between October and March 2019 any more than it could be between December and March 2019. What matters is that the British government’s slow, grudging recognition of the need for a transition period is taking off any immediate time pressure.
Still, if it thought negotiations so far were tough, Britain should be steeling itself for a far bumpier ride ahead.
There is no reason at all to assume that the negotiations to come will be any more straightforward.
Indeed, they promise to be far more problematic than what we’ve seen so far — and that’s leaving aside the inconvenient fact that the British government itself has yet to agree on what it actually wants.
British political debate is treating the transition as if it were something we only need to ask for to get. Yet what Jean-Claude Piris, a former EU adviser, recently referred to as a “full Monty” transition — in which the U.K. maintains its current trade status with the EU — raises all kinds of legal issues.
So far, so challenging. But even assuming Britain gets an agreement in principle on Article 50’s initial divorce issues and can quickly agree on the terms of its transition period, our problems will not be over.
We will be forced to negotiate a trade deal without our strongest negotiation asset — money. Because any Article 50 deal must be signed, sealed and ratified by March 2019, and because no trade deal will be agreed by then, we will have committed to making payments to the EU before we can extract trade concessions in return.
Read more: For Britain, the worst of Brexit talks is yet to come – POLITICO
After the European Council declared earlier this month that Brexit negotiations have not yet made “sufficient progress,” the good news is that all signs suggest the U.K. can expect Brussels to agree to kickstart talks on the future relationship at December’s summit. The bad news is that that’s when the real trouble will start.
There are still a number of issues to be resolved under the Article 50 talks. There is an increasing, albeit belated, recognition that the issue of the Irish border must be dealt with in the context of talks over trade. And when it comes to the rights of EU citizens living in the U.K., the role of the European Court of Justice remains a point of contention, even if both sides are edging toward some form of compromise.
Then, of course, there is the money. But for all the noise surrounding the issue, here too a compromise is within reach. The probability of continued payments during any transition period should also ease both sides toward a solution.
We’ll have lost a couple months, but ultimately this hardly matters. A trade deal could not have been negotiated between October and March 2019 any more than it could be between December and March 2019. What matters is that the British government’s slow, grudging recognition of the need for a transition period is taking off any immediate time pressure.
Still, if it thought negotiations so far were tough, Britain should be steeling itself for a far bumpier ride ahead.
There is no reason at all to assume that the negotiations to come will be any more straightforward.
Indeed, they promise to be far more problematic than what we’ve seen so far — and that’s leaving aside the inconvenient fact that the British government itself has yet to agree on what it actually wants.
British political debate is treating the transition as if it were something we only need to ask for to get. Yet what Jean-Claude Piris, a former EU adviser, recently referred to as a “full Monty” transition — in which the U.K. maintains its current trade status with the EU — raises all kinds of legal issues.
So far, so challenging. But even assuming Britain gets an agreement in principle on Article 50’s initial divorce issues and can quickly agree on the terms of its transition period, our problems will not be over.
We will be forced to negotiate a trade deal without our strongest negotiation asset — money. Because any Article 50 deal must be signed, sealed and ratified by March 2019, and because no trade deal will be agreed by then, we will have committed to making payments to the EU before we can extract trade concessions in return.
Read more: For Britain, the worst of Brexit talks is yet to come – POLITICO
