Michel Barnier is to make his first detailed public statement on Brexit since taking up the role of the EU’s chief divorce negotiator, as a senior EU source confirmed that the bill for leaving the bloc was expected to total €55bn-€60bn (£46bn-£51bn).
Barnier, a former French foreign minister, has made almost no public comment since taking up his post on 1 October. Instead he has been in listening mode, touring the EU’s national capitals to sound out opinions on Brexit.
So far, he has visited 18 of the EU’s 27 remaining member states, a grand tour that has taken him from the granite splendour of the Irish taoiseach’s office in Dublin to the palm-tree fringed government buildings in Nicosia.
Barnier has pointedly refused to start talks with the British government, although David Davis was permitted a half-hour “courtesy coffee” when the Brexit secretary made a cloak-and-dagger trip to Brussels last month.
Although he has pronounced on none of the big questions, he has chosen to tweet a few dry jokes at the UK’s expense, including a picture of himself standing outside the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb.
Last month, an aide to the Frenchman tweeted a picture of Barnier and the deputy negotiator Sabine Weyand enjoying a glass of prosecco between meetings in Rome. Days earlier, Boris Johnson was ridiculed for telling the Italian economics minister that Italy would want to grant the UK access to the single market to avoid seeing British imports of prosecco dry up.
On Tuesday, the Frenchman is likely to repeat the EU’s mantra of “no negotiations without notification” at his first official press conference, billed as a chance to give an overview of his Brexit work.
Barnier’s officials have drawn up a Brexit bill totalling £46bn-£51bn, a source has told the Guardian, confirming earlier reports. The bill would cover the UK’s share of EU staff pensions, unpaid bills on infrastructure projects, and the cost of decommissioning nuclear power plants. But the number varies considerably depending on assumptions about what the UK is liable for.
The commission’s number-crunchers are also examining different Brexit scenarios to gauge the potential economic hit for the UK and the EU27.
EU negotiators have been stressing for weeks they are ready to begin Brexit negotiations “tomorrow” and are waiting for Theresa May to launch article 50 by her promised deadline of the end of March.
This will start the clock ticking on two years of negotiations, but the time for substantive talks could be far shorter. Guy Verhofstadt, the European parliament’s pointman, has said actual Brexit talks could be squeezed into 14 or 15 months, once the EU process is taken into account, with the crunch coming in late 2018.
Barnier told experts from the EU’s other 27 member states last week that he wanted to avoid a soft transition deal that would see Britain staying in the club on easy terms for an indefinite period. He also listed the main points that article 50 should cover: borders, settling Britain’s Brexit bill, and the status of EU citizens. European politicians are insisting that the questions of Britain’s trading and foreign policy status with the EU will need to be resolved separately.
As well as Croatia and Italy, Barnier’s grand tour has taken him to the EU’s powerhouses, Germany and France. In December, he will tick off Finland, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic, in a mission that echoes the sweeping round of visits by David Cameron begun 18 months ago, as the then prime minister tried to shore up support for his EU reform plans.
Barnier’s only direct foray into the talks was a tweet to quash speculation that he would insist on running the Brexit negotiations in French. Tuesday’s press conference will be conducted in French and English, a commission spokesperson said.
Although Barnier will be one of the most prominent faces of the Brexit divorce, he will not be running the show. The commission will lead the technical work on behalf of the EU’s 27 member states, who will define Barnier’s negotiating mandate. EU leaders will convene for a special summit to agree their red lines four to six weeks after May presses the article 50 button.
The Brexit deal will also have to be approved by the European parliament’s Verhofstadt and 750 other MEPs, including those from the UK.
MEPs have been the strongest voices arguing for the UK to have completed its exit before European parliament elections in mid-2019.
But talks on the UK’s future economic and trading status with the EU remain uncertain. Seeing the heated, sometimes confused debate in London, many EU diplomats and politicians are convinced that the British government does not yet know what relationship it wants with the EU.
“I am not sure the UK will be ready at the time of notification to give a view on the kind of status it wants,” said one senior diplomat. Another view is that the government is still in election mode and has made little advance on Brexit since the summer.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/dec/06/eus-chief-divorce-negotiator-michel-barnier-to-make-first-brexit-statement
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