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Bloomberg
A meeting of chief Brexit negotiators was one of the most difficult encounters of the last three years, according to European officials, who are bracing for talks to become more hostile under the next British government.
The EU side is weighing up possible concessions it could offer the UK to avoid a chaotic no-deal Brexit, according to European officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the encounter between Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels risks hardening the EU’s stance, making it more difficult to find a way out of the deadlock. Two officials said the UK now appeared to be trying to bully the EU into concessions, just as the two candidates to become prime minister vow to take a tougher negotiating stance.
A spokesman for the UK’s Brexit department said the meeting had been constructive.
The EU side is braced for the prospect of Boris Johnson — someone they see as an untrustworthy populist — becoming prime minister. Johnson is taking a tougher line than Prime Minister Theresa May, vowing to leave the bloc on October 31, with or without a deal. The pound fell 0.5 percent on Tuesday, approaching its 2019 low.
Front-runner Johnson, or his underdog rival Jeremy Hunt, is due to take office next week.
Both candidates for UK prime minister have promised to renegotiate the Irish backstop, the most toxic part of the Brexit deal that May struck. They both reiterated in a leadership debate that the measure has to go — tweaking it isn’t enough. Johnson ruled out adding a time-limit or any kind of annex to make it more palatable.
Both men are willing to accept a no-deal exit if the bloc won’t talk.
The EU says the deal isn’t up for renegotiation. Even in private, EU officials echo that line. But there are early discussions internally over a package of measures that would aim to make it more palatable in the UK so the next prime minister has a chance of getting it ratified by a divided Parliament.
While it falls short of what both candidates have said they want on the campaign trail, it could include: Further commitments to look at technological solutions for the Irish border and to move quickly to a full trade deal with the UK, based on a package of compromises May won in Strasbourg in March.
Making a formal link between achieving a post-Brexit future trade deal and the payment of the UK’s financial settlement — estimated by the British government to be 39 billion pounds.
Offering again to make the backstop apply only to Northern Ireland rather than the whole of the UK, which May originally rejected.