EU Puts the Ball in Britain's Court on Trade
December 15 2017 - 5:41AM
Dow Jones News
By Laurence Norman and Jenny Gross
BRUSSELS--European leaders called on British Prime Minister
Theresa May to spell out what her government wants from a future
trade agreement in order to begin serious negotiations on the issue
by March.
Leaders are set to agree Friday to allow Brexit negotiations to
advance. However, arriving for the second day of this week's
summit, they put the onus on Britain to set out its objectives for
a future trade deal in the coming weeks.
"The first real big step is for the United Kingdom to say very
clearly what it wants," said Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.
"I think If this happens in the next few weeks, we can start in
earnest and by March we can have a very clear European
position."
The U.K. government has been divided over what sort of
relationship it wants with the EU, and what compromises pro-Brexit
forces are willing to make to maintain close trade ties with the
bloc.
Mrs. May is set to hold the first of what is expected to be
several cabinet meetings on Tuesday to decide the shape of
Britain's demands for a future trade agreement.
Until now, the government has been clear it wants Britain to
leave the EU's single market and customs union, and to narrow the
influence of EU courts in Britain.
Mrs. May has in recent months struggled to quell dissension from
members of her top team, made up of both pro- and anti-EU
politicians.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the
campaign to leave the EU, in September undercut Mrs. May by laying
out his own vision including a clean break from EU rules several
days before she was set to make a keynote speech. Senior officials
have also clashed over immigration policy and over whether Britain
should accept all of its current EU obligations during a two-year
post-Brexit transition.
Mrs. May and her top team must determine how closely Britain
plans to align itself with EU trade rules and standards in the
future. Close alignment could help deliver a solid trade accord and
may ease specific challenges, like how to avoid a hard border with
Ireland.
Supporters of a clean break with the EU argue that only through
a shift away from the bloc's rules can Britain hope to start
locking in trade deals with other major economies that will bolster
the U.K.'s economic future.
British officials say they are hopeful that behind-the-scenes
talks will begin now on a two-year transitional deal and on the
future relationship.
The EU has set out a stricter timeline for the coming weeks. It
says formal negotiations on a transition can only begin in late
January and that negotiations on the future trade agreement must
wait at least until March, when the bloc will give formal
negotiation guidelines to the EU's chief negotiator, Michel
Barnier.
Some leaders warned about a rocky path ahead. Austrian
Chancellor Christian Kern raised questions about whether thorny
questions over Ireland have really been settled. "If there can't be
a border between Northern Ireland and the U.K. and no border
between Ireland and Northern Ireland, even school children can see
that's a riddle that still needs to be solved," he said.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday said that while
progress has been made "there are still many outstanding
issues."
Leaders still need to produce a legal text for last week's
agreement on important divorce terms between the EU and
Britain.
Mrs. May arrived in Brussels having on Wednesday suffered her
most serious legislative setback since Britain triggered its exit
from the U.K., when members of her Conservative party joined
opposition lawmakers and voted to guarantee the British Parliament
the power to vote on whether to accept any final Brexit deal.
After a dinner Thursday night with EU leaders, Mrs. May said
there had been "very good discussions" and she was now looking
forward to quickly starting negotiations on "our future trade
relationship and security relationship."
Valentina Pop contributed to this article.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Jenny
Gross at jenny.gross@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 15, 2017 05:26 ET (10:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.