UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will go to Brussels “in the next few days” to meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in person, hoping to find an understanding in what has been described as the “real last attempt”To avoid a no-deal Brexit. That is the scenario of the “no deal”, increasingly probable, which will trigger if an alternative is not found by 31 December. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Johnson he said that negotiation “seems very, very difficult at the moment” and that “there are limits beyond which, of course, no reasonable government or country can go.”
Johnson and von der Leyen decided to meet in person on Monday evening, after a long phone call that in theory should have restarted the negotiations but which in reality did not bring any significant news on the issues that divide the two sides. The conversation followed 48 hours of very intense negotiations, which, however, had not in turn unblocked the situation.
A few hours before the phone call, the British government made an opening gesture – or at least what was presented as such – promising to write off some rules approved in October by Parliament in violation of the Withdrawal Agreement, which they had done very angry the Union and which, among other things, constituted a violation of international law. The opening did not help much, not least because the British Parliament it is contrary, and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney he said Monday evening to the network RTÉ that in the last two days “there has been no progress” in the negotiations.
It is also not clear how long the phone call lasted between the two leaders: the EU says 90 minutes, the UK 45. The media, however, write that at some point Boris Johnson asked for a break and the conversation was never resumed. The two leaders, at that point, published a joint statement in which they say they have “agreed that there are not yet the conditions to close an agreement due to significant differences on three critical issues: the level playing field, the governance and fishing ”, and they add:“ We asked our chief negotiators and their teams to prepare an account of the differences that still remain, to discuss them in a physical meeting in Brussels in the coming days ”.
Of the three questions still open, the first, that is level playing field, is probably the most important: the EU wants to prevent the UK from benefiting its companies in an anticompetitive way after Brexit, for example by providing state subsidies: this, European diplomats say, would not be fair because in the event of an agreement the UK it would have access to the single European market, and subsidized companies – to continue with the example – could compete with those of member countries, which according to the rules of the Union cannot receive subsidies. That is why the EU is calling for the right to impose sanctions on the UK for anti-competitive behavior, among other things.
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The problems on the governance instead they concern disagreements on mechanisms, legal and otherwise, to be activated in the event of disputes between the EU and the United Kingdom. Finally, fishing has become a difficult issue to resolve especially because the countries bordering the Channel, such as France and Belgium, want to maintain access to British territorial waters for their fishermen, as has been the case for decades. The UK believes this is a violation of sovereignty, and is negotiating to find a compromise, for example on the length of a transition period or on the definition of which vessels could have access to British seas.
The negotiation on Brexit over the years has had many decisive moments that have not turned out to be such, but the proximity to the deadline of 31 December suggests that the meeting of the next few days, if not definitive, will at least be very important. The fact that the two leaders have decided to deal with it personally, after months of meetings between the two chief negotiators, Michel Barnier on the European side and David Frost on the British side, also suggests this. The meeting in person between Johnson and von der Leyen is the first since last January, when the president of the Commission had gone to London.
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It is not yet clear when von der Leyen and Johnson will meet. In theory within this week, but the opportunities are relatively few, because the European Council summit will be held in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, where the heads of state and government of the member countries will meet in person. Second Politico Europe, from Der Leyen non he would that the two events overlap, to prevent Johnson from taking advantage of the summit to extend the negotiation to other leaders. Leading European rulers, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, have mandated von der Leyen to manage the negotiations and have so far avoided divisions that could weaken the European negotiating position.
If the negotiation fails, the UK will be out of the European Union on 1 January 2021 with no economic and trade agreement, and this could cause serious damage to the economy (the Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated that the British GDP would fall by 2 per cent more than expected and that around 300,000 jobs would be lost) and considerable inconvenience to the population on both sides, because border controls, the need for visas, residence limits and so on would return. The European economy would also likely be hurt by a no deal.
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