Amicable divorce Brexit deal, for Johnson a meager loot

“Normally, when I come to an agreement, I feel joy. Today I feel satisfaction and relief ”. Ursula von der Leyen thus announces the long-awaited agreement with London on Brexit. The December 31 deadline has been eliminated, the ‘no deal’ and its tariffs have been avoided. After the last very intense days and nights of negotiations in Brussels between the teams led respectively by Michel Barnier for the EU and David Frost for the UK, London will be ‘finally’ out of the Union as of January 1, at 4 years. and a half since the Brexit referendum in 2016.

“We have regained control of our laws and our destiny,” says Boris Johnson, who manages to close the year better than so far in the pandemic, but in Brexit his loot is meager and brings him serious ‘problems’. Scotland shakes for independence. On the other hand, there is a raised Union and a rotating German presidency, headed by Angela Merkel, who can also boast of this result.

Johnson ensures that any dispute with Brussels is not examined by the European Union Court of Justice or even by an automatic mechanism to align with EU standards. If London violates competition agreements, the EU can respond with sanctions. “There are tools to defend ourselves if the pacts are violated,” says von der Leyen.

Prime Minister Tory deals a severe blow to the Union with the decision to leave the Erasmus program, which makes life so difficult for European students who want to study in the Kingdom from the autumn of 2021. But the decision also hurts the British students who want to study in the EU. “Difficult decision – Johnson sketches – but it was extremely expensive. Now we will be able to develop a program that will allow British students to go to study all over the world and not just in European universities ”.

In the rest, Downing Street gives way. Its alot.

Fishing: the issue that threatened to derail the negotiations towards a very dangerous “no deal”, the British prime minister asked the Europeans to reduce their share of catches in the Canal by 80%. It only manages to get a 25 percent reduction over the next five and a half years. Upon expiration of these agreements, after June 2026, an annual agreement will be negotiated. But if it is not achieved, the system agreed today would be renewed every three months.

As for financial services, the “deal” places a mortgage on London’s future as a commercial city. And Johnson can only admit, “We didn’t get what we wanted …”.

And then there is the ‘grain’ of Scotland, which plans independence from London. Here’s the tweet from Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who, among other things, defines the government’s decision to leave the Erasmus program as “cultural vandalism.”

The Scots end up penalized in exports too. The Kingdom will still be able to export animals and fruit and vegetables to Europe, in accordance with Single Market standards and subject to verification by Brussels, but it will not be able to export seed potatoes, a business that earns Scotland £ 112 million per year. year.

At a press conference in front of 10 Downing Street, Johnson, the most ‘Brexite’ leader of the two who preceded him in these 4 and a half years of delirium, David Cameron and Theresa May, is forced to use content language . for him new. Full of promises for the future, rather than a celebration of the agreement reached. Typical attitude of those who do not have much to show off, if not the fact of having completed Brexit, avoiding that dangerous ‘no deal’ that has also been used many times by London in the negotiations: more threat than real option.

“Compromise is not a bad word,” says the premier who only a few months ago dared to approve the internal market bill, in an attempt to violate the border agreements between the two ‘Irish’. He had to back down on that too. Here too, Europe has managed to ensure that there are no physical borders between the Territories of Belfast and Dublin.

“It is one thing to gain freedom, another is how it is used”, is Johnson’s attempt to buy time. The future outside the Union is unknown, especially in times of pandemics and without an ally Donald Trump in the White House.

“Covid has made negotiations difficult,” von der Leyen admits, but “at the end of a long and tortuous road, we have reached a fair and balanced agreement, the most responsible thing for both parties. Now we can put Brexit behind us and move on. “

The agreement must be approved by the ambassadors of the European states, by the European Parliament, next week the vote in Westminster. It’s a two thousand page deal. “We are laying the foundations for a new chapter in our relations with Great Britain”, is Angela Merkel’s comment, the German government will now study the treaty text “intensively”, but will not have to “start from scratch” like the governments of the United States. members have been consulted all the time. “Therefore, we will soon be in a position where we can judge whether Germany can sustain today’s result.”

But today’s agreement is a positive result especially for the Chancellor. Following the agreement on the recovery fund, Brexit is yet another piece of the EU’s legacy, just days after the end of his term as president in office, not even a year after the expiration of his term in Germany.