Tribune. But where is it, this European Union (EU) in a strong position to negotiate a balanced trade agreement with the United Kingdom? But how can we explain that Michel Barnier, the European Brexit negotiator, is now weakened by negotiations that are not moving forward an inch?
Initially, the European Union had the naivety to believe that it could impose on the United Kingdom the continued application of its trade rules (aid to companies, rules on public procurement, standards applicable on the internal market, etc.) against free access without taxes and without rights to the single market.
Curious mandate
But on fisheries, public procurement, standards for products and services, the negotiations have not advanced one iota since their inception. How to explain this situation and the progressive weakening of the positions of the EU and its main negotiator?
We discover the vagaries of the implementation of a common trade policy, which is not able to protect us from the sometimes unfair competition from countries like China, nor to constitute a bulwark against the United Kingdom. , who decided to regain his independence
First of all, we see that the negotiating mandate set by the twenty-seven Member States at the Commission, and defended by Michel Barnier, is somewhat curious. How indeed can a country which has chosen to leave the Union to regain its sovereignty be asked to continue to apply the trade rules of this Union from which it wishes in the first place to depart, which partly motivated its divorce?
In addition, the negotiating mandate defined in the Commission by the 27 is relatively rigid. The red lines (fishing, public markets, business subsidies, standards to be applied by producers of goods and services) are everywhere. How, locked in such a straitjacket, be able to lead a real negotiation which is not in the end the tireless repetition, without concession, without compromise, of a fixed position? What exactly is negotiable for the Union, apart from the continuation of past relations between the two entities?
We thus discover that the Commission’s negotiation method (representation of twenty-seven Member States) is more of a weakness than a strength, because it does not allow the flexibility that any negotiation requires, because it weakens the European negotiator, unable to take initiatives to unblock the situation, because it constitutes an extremely cumbersome process contrary to the dynamics and speed necessary for any negotiation. In this case, the Union in this case does not create strength but rather breeds weakness.
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