It was the first round and so far none of the protagonists is knocked out. This week, the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU) began negotiations to try to define what their future relationship will be, starting on 1er January 2021. Because, unless Boris Johnson changes his mind and asks for extensions, which today seems unlikely, in less than ten months London will have definitively left European house.
Chief negotiator for Europe Michel Barnier and his British counterpart David Frost saw each other on Monday 2 March before their teams – more than a hundred people on each side – locked themselves up in the main center of Brussels congress to discuss, between Tuesday and Thursday morning. Meetings that have taken place without any handshake being exchanged, Covid-19 obliges. In an apparently calm atmosphere, contrasting surprisingly with the acidity of the exchanges between London and Brussels these last weeks.
"To be quite frank, there is a lot of divergence and very serious divergences", Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday (5 March) at a press conference. "The negotiations are going to be very difficult", we added on the British side. The two parties, who will meet on March 18, share in any case the observation and the reasons for their disagreement. "Which has not always been the case", remarked one close to the negotiations.
First point of disagreement: fair conditions of competition. For Brussels, the United Kingdom will only benefit from a tax-free and quota-free trade agreement if it aligns with EU environmental, state aid and labor law standards. London insists on requiring its own laws, claims to be a step ahead in climate matters, and insists that the United Kingdom has so far been one of the lowest recourse EU members state aid. "They tell us that they still have the ambition to have high standards, but do not want to translate these commitments into a common agreement", laments Michel Barnier.
Judicial and police cooperation in question
There is another area where positions seem to be irreconcilable today: that of judicial and police cooperation. Boris Johnson, who wants to make his " independence " his country, refuses to defer to the European Court of Justice as regards the interpretation of Community law. Unthinkable, replies Brussels. The British Prime Minister also refuses to continue applying the European Convention on Human Rights. This is an old request from the Brexiters. "We are committed to respecting the Convention but this does not need to be incorporated into an international agreement"says Downing Street.
