EU's Impossible Demands

by Louise Mclean

On 25th February the EU agreed its 46 page mandate with member states for negotiating a trade deal with Britain, with talks starting in Brussels on 2nd March.

One has to wonder where Michel Barnier has been these past six months, as it seems he has failed to notice the massive tug of war between the People and Parliament to get the Brexit we voted for in June 2016. As has been pointed out, we have left the EU and should now be treated as a third country, not as a member state.

His mandate has the effrontery to ask for all the things that we had rejected, almost as though Barnier was deaf or deficient in understanding, despite Boris Johnson and his chief negotiator, David Frost, making it clear that Britain wants to 'take back control'.

In exchange for a trade deal with the EU, demands are being made to continue following EU laws and directives, for European fisherman to have the same access to our fishing waters as before and for the European Court of Justice to oversee any legal disputes.

Brussels has recently stated that although it has agreed a Canada-style trade deal, we must align closely to EU rules because we are geographically closer than Canada.  For this you can read that Brussels is terrified of Britain becoming a serious competitor on their doorstep, which is precisely what will happen once we have totally broken free.

The mandate states that we can only have zero tariff trade with the EU, if there is regulatory alignment or a 'level playing field' and maintain current standards on climate change, tax and state aid.  Remaining aligned to EU rules would be as though we had not left the European Union and we would certainly not be taking back control of our laws! 

A new demand at the behest of France, says we must have the same standards for food production, as their fear is our foods might become competitively cheaper. This may prevent us from importing foods from America, which has different safety and processing standards from Europe. Unfortunately this could be problematic, as currently, according to the Daily Telegraph, 80% of our food exports go to European markets.

The EU is also concerned that Britain may not implement a Customs Border for Northern Ireland, which had been agreed in the Withdrawal Agreement.

It looks as though swords will be crossed in the forthcoming negotiations being held in Brussels and London alternately.  These issues must be overwhelming resolved before 1st July 2020, when a decision must be made about the possibility of extending the transition date at the end of the year, when we are fully out.  Let us hope that yet another extension does not happen and if the EU continues its dogmatic stance, we will just have to trade on WTO terms.

Boris Johnson is to present his own mandate to the EU tomorrow and let us hope he does not back down and agree any of these impossible demands.