by
8 months ago

Oops

Jeremy Cliffe, Berlin Desk Chief of "The Economist" reports on the state of "negotiations" between the UK and the EU27, the remainder of the EU. It's not pretty.

  1. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    Today's FAZ report on May's disastrous dinner with Juncker - briefed by senior Commission sources - is absolutely damning.
    8 months ago
  2. FAZ is the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  3. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    1) May had said she wanted to talk not just Brexit but also world problems; but in practice it fell to Juncker to propose one to discuss.
    8 months ago
  4. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    2) May has made clear to the Commission that she fully expects to be reelected as PM.
    8 months ago
  5. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    3) It is thought [in the Commission] that May wants to frustrate the daily business of the EU27, to improve her own negotiating position.
    8 months ago
  6. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    4) May seemed pissed off at Davis for regaling her dinner guests of his ECJ case against her data retention measures - three times.
    8 months ago
  7. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    5) EU side were astonished at May's suggestion that EU/UK expats issue could be sorted at EU Council meeting at the end of June.
    8 months ago
  8. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    6) Juncker objected to this timetable as way too optimistic given complexities, eg on rights to health care.
    8 months ago
  9. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    7) Juncker pulled two piles of paper from his bag: Croatia's EU entry deal, Canada's free trade deal. His point: Brexit will be v v complex.
    8 months ago
  10. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    8) May wanted to work through the Brexit talks in monthly, 4-day blocks; all confidential until the end of the process.
    8 months ago
  11. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    9) Commission said impossible to reconcile this with need to square off member states & European Parliament, so documents must be published.
    8 months ago
  12. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    10) EU side felt May was seeing whole thing through rose-tinted-glasses. "Let us make Brexit a success" she told them.
    8 months ago
  13. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    11) Juncker countered that Britain will now be a third state, not even (like Turkey) in the customs union: "Brexit cannot be a success".
    8 months ago
  14. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    12) May seemed surprised by this and seemed to the EU side not to have been fully briefed.
    8 months ago
  15. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    13) She cited her own JHA opt-out negotiations as home sec as a model: a mutually useful agreement meaning lots on paper, little in reality.
    8 months ago
  16. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    14) May's reference to the JHA (justice and home affairs) opt-outs set off alarm signals for the EU side. This was what they had feared.
    8 months ago
  17. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    15) ie as home sec May opted out of EU measures (playing to UK audience) then opted back in, and wrongly thinks she can do same with Brexit
    8 months ago
  18. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    16) "The more I hear, the more sceptical I become" said Juncker (this was only half way through the dinner)
    8 months ago
  19. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    17) May then insisted to Juncker et al that UK owes EU no money because there is nothing to that effect in the treaties.
    8 months ago
  20. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    18) Her guests then informed her that the EU is not a golf club
    8 months ago
  21. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    19) Davis then objected that EU could not force a post-Brexit, post-ECJ UK to pay the bill. OK, said Juncker, then no trade deal.
    8 months ago
  22. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    20) ...leaving EU27 with UK's unpaid bills will involve national parliaments in process (a point that Berlin had made *repeatedly* before).
    8 months ago
  23. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    21) "I leave Downing St ten times as sceptical as I was before" Juncker told May as he left
    8 months ago
  24. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    22) Next morning at c7am Juncker called Merkel on her mobile, said May living in another galaxy & totally deluding herself
    8 months ago
  25. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    23) Merkel quickly reworked her speech to Bundestag to include her now-famous "some in Britain still have illusions" comment
    8 months ago
  26. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    24) FAZ concludes: May in election mode & playing to crowd, but what use is a big majority won by nurturing delusions of Brexit hardliners?
    8 months ago
  27. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    25) Juncker's team now think it more likely than not that Brexit talks will collapse & hope Brits wake up to harsh realities in time.
    8 months ago
  28. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    26) What to make of it all? Obviously this leak is a highly tactical move by Commission. But contents deeply worrying for UK nonetheless.
    8 months ago
  29. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    27) The report points to major communications/briefing problems. Important messages from Berlin & Brussels seem not to be getting through.
    8 months ago
  30. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    28) Presumably as a result, May seems to be labouring under some really rather fundamental misconceptions about Brexit & the EU27.
    8 months ago
  31. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    29) Also clear that (as some of us have been warning for a while...) No 10 should expect every detail of the Brexit talks to leak.
    8 months ago
  32. JeremyCliffe
    Jeremy Cliffe@JeremyCliffe
    30/30) Sorry for the long thread. And a reminder: full credit for all the above reporting on the May/Juncker dinner goes to the FAZ.
    8 months ago
  33. davelevy
    ยท
    8 months ago
  34. The meeting took place the week before the May Day weekend.