19/10/2020
There are times when the
Financial Times is ahead of the Brexit field, with genuine insight on developments. This
story isn't one of those occasions.
Headlined, "Time is running short to resolve the Brexit drama", this is one of those "statement of the bleedin' obvious" stories, with the paper telling us: "A path to a UK-EU trade deal exists, but theatrics risk a breakdown".
For sure, there is no need to dispute its general conclusions when it says that "theatrics and brinkmanship have become a wearyingly familiar part of Brexit". Indeed they have, and we're all
bored witless with it.
But then, like most of us, the paper has seen through these particular "theatrics", sensing that Downing Street's declaration on Friday that talks on a future trade accord were "over" appears a reprise of Johnson's tactics in exit talks a year ago: threaten no-deal, use that as political cover to make concessions, then sell the final agreement as a triumph for toughness.
Thus, the paper says that Johnson's claim that the UK is ready to go it alone when the transition period ends in December "is surely a bluff". Brussels knows that, it says. The danger is that miscalculations blow up the talks despite both sidesâ desire for a deal. That would be worse for the UK - but, on top of a resurgent pandemic, it would damage the EU too.
In the
FT's view, both parties share blame for the current
impasse. Johnson had raised the stakes by threatening to "move on" if there had been no agreement by last Thursday's European Council.
When a deal remained elusive, EU leaders called his bluff but the received wisdom is that the "colleagues" fumbled the diplomatic footwork. The Council conclusions "implied" all concessions must come from the UK.
What made the story was that the pledge to intensify talks, introduced in the first draft, was changed in the final version. The paper thinks this last-minute change was to avoid the EU and Barnier, appearing to be dancing too much to Johnson's tune.
It is there, however, that things are perhaps not so "bleedin' obvious". As always, the devil is in the detail. For instance, when we
reported the change, we noted that the draft originally read as inviting Barnier "to intensify negotiations" â which is what the UK wanted, with the aim "of ensuring that an agreement can be applied from 1 January 2021".
But it the statement finally emerged as inviting Barnier to continue negotiations in the coming weeks, and calling on the UK "to make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible".
While the
FT's "take" on this is compatible with the events, one must also recall that the European Council had pronounced on the talks, noting "with concern" that progress on the key issues of interest to the Union "is still not sufficient for an agreement to be reached".
In my view, this phrasing must not only be taken into account, it must also be put in context. If we go back to the third round of the Article 50 negotiations, and
Barnier's comments on 31 August 2017, we find him observing that the UK wanted "to take back control", wanting "to adopt its own standards and regulations". That was fine but, he complained, "it also wants to have these standards recognised automatically in the EU".
That is what, he said UK position papers had asked for, to which he responded: "This is simply impossible. You cannot be outside the Single Market and shape its legal order". And this is actually a crucial point, a deal-breaker.
If the UK was allowed to dictate its own domestic standards and the EU was unconditionally to accept those standards as sufficient to allow products free circulation within the Single Market, then the UK would be effectively setting standards acceptable to the Single Market as well. To do so would, in Barnier's terms, breach the EU's autonomy of decision-making, something which could not possibly be allowed.
Now fast-forward to
yesterday's piece where we see in the UK's proposal for
aviation safety exactly the same dynamic of which Michel Barnier complained back in 2017.
Consistently, we see such expectations expressed by government figures or figures "close to government". And when we look to the
CAA Website on Brexit, we see references to the absence of UK-EU aviation safety agreements and "no continued mutual recognition".
The CAA thus tells us that its "contingency planning is based on a scenario in which the UK Government and CAA take all reasonable steps within their control to reduce disruption to the aviation industry if a mutual recognition arrangement is not agreed".
Here, one would have thought that a government agency would know what it was talking about, but apparently not. There is no "mutual recognition" agreement with the EU â we have harmonised our standards, which is an altogether different thing. And not under any circumstances will the EU permit mutual recognition arrangements. They are simply not on offer.
And this somewhat illustrates the EU's problem. If British negotiators and officialdom continue, after all this time, to seek "mutual recognition" solutions to access the Single Market, then the EU's only response must be to refuse. To allow them would breach the EU's autonomy of decision-making.
But if this is the only solution that the UK is offering, then the negotiations have nowhere to go. Unless and until the UK is prepared "to make the necessary moves to make an agreement possible" â as specified by the European Council â there is little chance of negotiations succeeding.
It is perhaps because of the futility of carrying on the negotiations on the current basis that the European Council firmed up its message and demanded that the UK made the "necessary moves".
Perhaps also, it is no coincidence that Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party (EPP) in the European Parliament, is recorded by
Zeit online as accusing Johnson of irresponsibility. He calls for him to start "negotiating seriously", noting that the European Union will never give up the integrity of its internal market.
This latter phrasing is more or less the same as the sentiment expressed by Barnier, which really does suggest that the negotiations have a long way to go. If the UK does not take note of this, the talks truly are at an end.
Thus, it is
pointless Michael Gove saying that the door is "still ajar" for more talks, while expecting the EU to "change their position". If things haven't advanced since 2017, then more talks are not going to make a lot of difference.
Also published on
Turbulent Times.
