U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May Hits Out at EU officials on Brexit
British leader accuses European officials of taking harder line ‘deliberately timed’ to affect U.K. election
Tensions between the U.K. and the European Union escalated Wednesday after British Prime Minister Theresa May accused European politicians and officials of issuing threats against Britain.
Hours after the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, detailed far-reaching demands for the Brexit divorce deal, Mrs. May said they represented a hardening of the bloc’s negotiating stance.
In a televised speech to voters ahead of a June 8 general election, she accused “some in Brussels” of willing the Brexit talks to fail. “Threats against Britain have been issued by European politicians and officials,” she said, without being specific.
Those threats “have been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general election,” she said.
Michel Barnier the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaking on Wednesday in Brussels on the European Commission's negotiating stance
Michel Barnier the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, speaking on Wednesday in Brussels on the European Commission's negotiating stance PHOTO: WIKTOR DABKOWSKI/ZUMA PRESS
The heightened tensions followed a dinner between Mrs. May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker a week ago.
After the meeting, EU officials warned that the British government still had illusions about what it could gain from the Brexit negotiations, and reports of what was described as a disastrous meeting appeared in the German press. Mrs. May said European press reports had misrepresented the British negotiating position.
The ratcheting-up of the rhetoric shows how the negotiations over Brexit, which have yet to formally begin, have the capacity to fall prey to sour relations between the two sides. Nonethleless, Mrs. May may see an electoral advantage in depicting the impending negotiations as requiring a unyielding response.
Earlier, in his first news conference since EU leaders last Saturday agreed to negotiating guidelines for him, Mr. Barnier repeatedly emphasized that Brexit would be painful and complicated.
He laid out new details of the bloc’s opening negotiating stance that were in some respects tougher than previously advertised, including ensuring that EU citizens in the U.K. keep their welfare benefits and residency rights for their lifetimes. The more detailed stance must be signed off by EU governments later this month.
Wednesday’s negotiating directives weigh in on the three key issues the EU wants settled upfront in the Brexit talks: EU citizens’ rights, a British payment to cover past EU financial commitments and the status of the Northern Ireland border. They specifically avoid giving Mr. Barnier a mandate to discuss a future EU-U.K. trade agreement or even a transitional deal to smooth the economic disruption caused by Britain leaving the bloc.
The EU has insisted there can be no talks on these issues until the key divorce issues are tackled. Mr. Barnier said he hoped that could be done by October or November but that was in the U.K.’s hands.
“Some have created the illusion that Brexit would have no material impact on our lives or that negotiations can be concluded quickly and painlessly,” Mr. Barnier said. “This is not the case.”
Wednesday’s paper said EU citizens in the U.K. and British citizens in the bloc should be guaranteed lifetime residency if they meet the EU’s five-year residency requirement.
Those rights should be enforceable for EU citizens who have previously lived in the U.K. but since left and should continue to allow family members of an EU citizen residing in the U.K. to move to Britain in the future, it says. EU citizens should also get the current broad range of housing, tax and other welfare benefits available, the paper argues.
Mr. Barnier said such rights should be directly enforced by the European Court of Justice, the EU’s top court, giving it a role in Britain until “well after the U.K. leaves.” Mr. Barnier said the court should also have a direct say over other aspects of the divorce deal, setting up a potential clash with the U.K. government which wants to be rid of EU courts’ jurisdiction after leaving the bloc, due in March 2019.
The document also underscores the differences between the EU and the U.K. on the Brexit bill, or the sum the EU wants the U.K. to pay to honor its past spending pledges. It says the U.K. will need to agree on an annual payments schedule, established in euros, meaning Britain will carry the exchange-rate risk. There will need to be specific arrangements on the U.K.’s contingent liabilities with the EU—for example, guarantees on loans made by EU bodies while the U.K. was a member—and Britain will need to continue to make payments for specific funds like the EU’s refugee payments to Turkey, the document says.
Also among the U.K. liabilities, the document says, are the full cost of relocating two U.K.-based EU agencies, the European Banking Authority and the European Medicines Agency, to elsewhere in the remaining bloc. EU officials also said on Wednesday that there is no legal basis for the U.K. to be repaid a share of EU assets like property or buildings.
In the past, EU officials have said the U.K.’s exit bill could total €60 billion ($65.5 billion) but now say it could be significantly higher. Mr. Barnier declined to give any figure.
On Wednesday morning, U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis pushed back on one latest assessment of the bill, saying it echoed Mrs. May’s point that no Brexit deal could be better than a bad one.
“We will not be paying €100 billion,” Mr. Davis told ITV News.
In his press conference, Mr. Barnier warned time was running short to ensure a successful deal, which will require burrowing down into details like the correct labeling of EU goods on British supermarket shelves in the days after Britain leaves.
Mr. Barnier welcomed that by calling an early election for June 8, Mrs. May had ensured the next British government would have five years of stability in front of it. He also played down reports that the dinner meeting with Mrs. May, his first with the prime minister, had been frosty.
It was a “very cordial meeting,” he said, despite what he said were sometimes “very different” positions on the issues.
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