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Michel Barnier 'worried' by No 10 plans to renege on Brexit deal


Michel Barnier said he was “worried” by the latest twists in the Brexit negotiations and would seek answers from the UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, over claims that Downing Street is planning to negate parts of the withdrawal agreement.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said full implementation of the international treaty was vital for avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland as it was reported that the government is planning legislation to override parts of the deal struck last year.

Ahead of the start on Tuesday of the latest round of trade and security negotiations with the British government, Barnier said the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal deal was a “prerequisite for peace since the end of the conflict … and it’s the prerequisite for a united and coherent economy for the entire island, and also to respect the single market”.

“Everything that has been signed must be respected,” Barnier told France Inter radio. “We demand quite simply, and calmly, and until the end, that the political commitments in the text agreed by Boris Johnson be legally translated into this treaty.

“The important thing for me is what the prime minister says and does, and what the British government itself says and does,” he said.

Whether there is a new deal with the EU on trade and security or not by the end of the year, under the withdrawal agreement Northern Ireland will stay in the EU’s single market from 2021 including its rules on subsidies, known as state aid.

The bloc’s customs code will also be implemented in full on goods coming into the province from the rest of the UK, requiring checks.

Timeline

From Brefusal to Brexit: a history of Britain in the EU

Show

Brefusal

The French president, Charles de Gaulle, vetoes Britain’s entry to EEC, accusing the UK of a “deep-seated hostility” towards the European project.

Brentry

With Sir Edward Heath having signed the accession treaty the previous year, the UK enters the EEC in an official ceremony complete with a torch-lit rally, dickie-bowed officials and a procession of political leaders, including former prime ministers Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home.

Referendum

The UK decides to stay in the common market after 67% voted “yes”. Margaret Thatcher, later to be leader of the Conservative party, campaigned to remain.

‘Give us our money back’

Margaret Thatcher negotiated what became known as the UK rebate with other EU members after the “iron lady” marched into the former French royal palace at Fontainebleau to demand “our own money back” claiming for every £2 contributed we get only £1 back” despite being one of the “three poorer” members of the community.

It was a move that sowed the seeds of Tory Euroscepticism that was to later cause the Brexit schism in the party. 

The Bruges speech

Thatcher served notice on the EU community in a defining moment in EU politics in which she questioned the expansionist plans of Jacques Delors, who had remarked that 80% of all decisions on economic and social policy would be made by the European Community within 10 years with a European government in “embryo”. That was a bridge too far for Thatcher.

The cold war ends

Collapse of Berlin wall and fall of communism in eastern Europe, which would later lead to expansion of EU.

‘No, no, no’

Divisions between the UK and the EU deepened with Thatcher telling the Commons in an infamous speech it was ‘no, no, no’ to what she saw as Delors’ continued power grab. Rupert Murdoch’s Sun newspaper ratchets up its opposition to Europe with a two-fingered “Up yours Delors” front page.

Black Wednesday

A collapse in the pound forced prime minister John Major and the then chancellor Norman Lamont to pull the UK out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

The single market

On 1 January, customs checks and duties were removed across the bloc. Thatcher hailed the vision of “a single market without barriers – visible or invisible – giving you direct and unhindered access to the purchasing power of over 300 million of the world’s wealthiest and most prosperous people”.

Maastricht treaty

Tory rebels vote against the treaty that paved the way for the creation of the European Union. John Major won the vote the following day in a pyrrhic victory. 

Repairing the relationship

Tony Blair patches up the relationship. Signs up to social charter and workers’ rights.

Ukip

Nigel Farage elected an MEP and immediately goes on the offensive in Brussels. “Our interests are best served by not being a member of this club,” he said in his maiden speech. “The level playing field is about as level as the decks of the Titanic after it hit an iceberg.”

The euro

Chancellor Gordon Brown decides the UK will not join the euro.

EU enlarges to to include eight countries of the former eastern bloc including Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

EU expands again, allowing Romania and Bulgaria into the club.

Migrant crisis

Anti-immigration hysteria seems to take hold with references to “cockroches” by Katie Hopkins in the Sun and tabloid headlines such as “How many more can we take?” and “Calais crisis: send in the dogs”.

David Cameron returns from Brussels with an EU reform package – but it isn’t enough to appease the Eurosceptic wing of his own party

Brexit referendum

The UK votes to leave the European Union, triggering David Cameron’s resignation and paving the way for Theresa May to become prime minister

Britain leaves the EU

After years of parliamentary impasse during Theresa May’s attempt to get a deal agreed, the UK leaves the EU.

The Financial Times had reported that the government was, however, alternatively seeking to give itself the option of keeping Northern Ireland within the UK’s state aid regime and dispensing with the requirement for local businesses to file customs paperwork when sending goods into the rest of the UK.

The option is reported to be contained within the internal market bill due to be published on Wednesday.

Such fallback legislation will be necessary should the Northern Ireland assembly vote to reject the withdrawal agreement’s protocol, as is permitted.

But the suggestion that the UK might be seeking to renege on its deal with Brussels in the event of the troubled trade and security negotiations breaking down brought swift denunciations on Monday.

Ireland’s foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, who helped broker the original Brexit settlement, tweeted that unravelling the withdrawal agreement would be “a very unwise way to proceed”.

The deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and vice- president of Sinn Féin, Michelle O’Neill, said on social media: “As the Brexit negotiations between the EU and British government enter their eighth round this week in London, any threats of a rollback on the Irish protocol would represent a treacherous betrayal which would inflict irreversible harm on the all-Ireland economy, and [Good Friday agreement].”

Frost and Barnier will re-engage in negotiations in London on Tuesday with expectations low for any progress. The two sides are at loggerheads on future access to British waters for European fishing fleet and the UK’s plans for its domestic subsidy regime from next year.

The EU is pushing for a linkage between its rule book any future UK system for controlling the level of domestic subsidies to ensure there is fair competition between British and European businesses.

Downing Street has insisted there is no precedent for such a linkage between subsidy rules in free trade deals.

With common ground proving difficult to find, Johnson has issued a statement effectively setting a five-week deadline for agreement to be found. Downing Street has been concerned that the EU planned to stretch talks deep into October, prolonging uncertainty.

The prime minister said: “There needs to be an agreement with our European friends by the time of the European council on 15 October if it’s going to be in force by the end of the year. So there is no sense in thinking about timelines that go beyond that point. If we can’t agree by then, then I do not see that there will be a free-trade agreement between us, and we should both accept that and move on.”

In response, Germany’s ambassador to the UK, Andreas Michaelis, called for calm and dismissed claims that the EU’s negotiating aims involved surrendering British sovereignty.

He tweeted: “After the Brexit remarks of PM I wonder if can still claim being an independent country. Is party to hundreds of international treaties. Underlying compromises have certainly not eroded our sovereignty. Same would hold true of a Brexit deal. Let’s get on with it!”





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