Michel Barnier to UK: Build trust by showing flexibility on Brexit bill

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator says settling the bill is ‘of major importance’ as basis for future discussions on trade, security and defense.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said the U.K. needs to build trust by showing flexibility on a Brexit financial settlement if it really wants to build a robust future relationship with the bloc.

In remarkably stark language, Barnier said Wednesday that the U.K. was risking its ongoing relationship with the European Union by failing to acknowledge its financial obligations as part of withdrawal from the bloc.

Pushed at a news conference on what Brussels needed to hear from London on the question of a financial settlement, Barnier said that basic trust was at stake, and he noted that a number of prominent British officials had wrongly suggested that the U.K. had no financial obligations to the EU at all.

“It is a major question in creating the foundation we need to start discussion on the future relationship, which is a very important topic,” Barnier said. “How to build a relationship on trade, on security or defense, on other topics, like universities for instance, how to build a stable relationship in the long run with a country if there is no trust? How do you do it?”

“It is not a ransom, it is not an exit bill, it is not a punishment or above all not a revenge,” Barnier said. “It is about closing the book. It is not easy. It is as costly as any other separation — nothing more, nothing less. We will not ask for a single euro, a single pound more than [the U.K.] legally committed.”

The dapper Frenchman, who seemed unusually jaunty at the news conference at the European Commission’s headquarters, also offered a sharp left hook in response to a jab by the British foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, who said senior EU officials can “go whistle” if they expect London to pay what Johnson called the “extortionate” sum demanded by Brussels.

“I am not hearing any whistling,” Barnier said, “just a clock ticking.”

Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesperson responded that London has “been clear that when we leave the EU, the days of Britain paying vast sums of money into the EU every year will end.

“But as the prime minister also said in her letter to President Tusk, we recognise that we will need to discuss how we determine a fair settlement of the U.K.’s rights and obligations as a departing member state, in accordance with the law and in the spirit of the United Kingdom’s continuing partnership with the EU.”

Legal uncertainty

The EU treaties set a two-year deadline for a country wishing to leave the bloc to complete a withdrawal agreement, and Barnier and other EU officials have warned that the U.K. has been dangerously slow in developing its proposals since officially triggering Article 50 at the end of March.

Should the sides fail to reach an accord, EU officials have warned it is the U.K. that will go over a “cliff’s edge” and into a chasm of legal uncertainty.

Barnier on Wednesday repeated his concerns about a lack of clarity in the U.K.’s negotiating positions and he urged London to make its goals clear ahead of the first full-round of talks next week in Brussels.

While a previous round of talks in June set the parameters for the discussions, on Monday the negotiators are to drill into details for the first time, breaking up into working groups on the main issues of a divorce settlement.

“The hard work starts now,” Barnier said. “We need to engage substantially, substantially on all the issues of the first phase of negotiations as agreed with the U.K. on the 19th of June — citizens’ rights, the single financial settlement, the new borders, particularly in Ireland, and the other separation issues like Euratom and the treatment of goods placed on the market before the Brexit day.”

Barnier observed, as he has previously, that the best option for the U.K. would be to remain in the EU, but he suggested that a second-best alternative would be to remain a member of the European Economic Area in an arrangement similar to those of Norway and Liechtenstein.

If the U.K. pushes for its own arrangement, Barnier warned, “there will be differences. There will be consequences.”

‘Wide enough for two’

Barnier said talks about the future of Ireland and border issues would begin Monday involving some of the most senior negotiators in hopes of achieving some consensus on political goals on that issue.

On another substantive issue, Barnier insisted that market access for British fish and seafood products would be linked to the U.K. allowing EU vessels to fish in its waters.

The EU has insisted that a discussion on the future relationship with the U.K. will only begin once the European Council judges that “sufficient progress” has been made on the divorce terms. And Barnier warned on Wednesday that there were stark differences between the two sides on some of those issues, including the question of citizens’ rights.

He said the U.K.’s position on citizens’ rights would not assure that EU nationals in Britain would be fully protected, and he repeated the EU’s demand that the European Court of Justice retain jurisdiction over any disputes or questions that emerge on citizens’ rights in the future. The U.K. has opposed that view, saying British law should take precedence in the U.K. even on citizens’ issues.

“As things stand, the British position does not enable those persons concerned to live their lives as they do today,” he said, adding: “For example, we want European citizens in the United Kingdom to have the same rights as British citizens who are living in Spain or any other country of the European Union. The British position as it now stands does not allow for that reciprocity.”

Barnier said he would shortly send seven documents to London to lay out the details on major issues concerning the divorce terms. “I will be sending seven papers to the United Kingdom no later than tomorrow,” he said.

He was perhaps most forceful, however, on the gap in expectations regarding the single financial settlement.

“It is essential that the United Kingdom recognize the existence of financial obligations, which are simply the result of the period during which they were members of the European Union,” Barnier said.

At the news conference, Barnier recalled that he had given his U.K. counterpart, David Davis, a walking stick as a gift as a symbol of the mountain that they must climb together.

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“It’s a difficult path,” Barnier said Wednesday. “But it’s wide enough for two to advance on it, side by side. That’s certainly the spirit I am working in.”

Annabelle Dickson contributed to this article.