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Michel Barnier will brief EU national governments on the Brexit talks on Wednesday morning amid concerns in some capitals that the European Commission is set to give up too much ground at the end of the negotiations.
An EU diplomat said France and some other member states were getting “nervous” and would pressure Barnier “to include them before agreeing to anything.”
French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Tuesday that “France will not accept an agreement that does not respect our long-term interests.”
“An agreement must allow for a balanced future relationship,” he said.
Negotiators from the EU and the UK are working in London to resolve the remaining sticking points in the talks, relating to EU fishing rights in British waters, the conditions of fair competition for companies and compliance agreements for any agreement.
Barnier informed national ambassadors on Friday that the two sides remained widely separated on issues such as “non-regression” of existing environmental and labor market standards and on dispute settlement agreements.
But the EU has recently lost ground on some points in the talks related to trade in goods, including customs facilities and measures to facilitate the transport of goods across the short Strait of Dover-Calais. Brussels has also softened some of its demands on how much of a good must be produced locally in order for it to qualify for duty-free trade.
Diplomats said this had fueled concern in Paris and other capitals that the bloc could pay too high a price for a deal, leaving the UK in a position to “choose” the benefits of the single market.
The countries most concerned are among the closest geographically to the UK, a group that also includes many of the fishing nations concerned about losing rights in British waters.
Speaking alongside Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo on Tuesday, Macron said his two countries were “among the hardest hit” by Brexit. “We will be particularly attentive to the conditions of fair competition, today and in the long term, and the fish issue,” he said.
EU officials said Barnier’s hasty appearance via video link at an ambassadors meeting on Wednesday morning is intended to calm nerves and provide an update on the talks that may wrap up in the coming days.
Business leaders have been told to be ready for a conference call with Cabinet office minister Michael Gove on Thursday, prompting speculation that the talks could reach a climax this week.
But even as Barnier and his British counterpart, David Frost, seek to push for a deal on the line, Britain is preparing new measures that would violate the divorce deal Boris Johnson crafted with EU leaders last year.
The government is planning a new tax bill containing clauses that threaten to overwrite sections of Northern Ireland’s protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement, Johnson’s allies confirmed.
The decision to introduce the bill was not intended to destabilize the talks, the prime minister’s allies said, adding that the government had always made it clear that it would present the appropriate legislation as a “safety net” in the event that no agreement with the EU was possible.
However, diplomats and EU officials have repeatedly warned that the introduction of such legislation could derail the talks.
The EU also warned that it will not ratify any eventual future deal if the UK does not give up its plans to overwrite the divorce deal, agreed last year by Brussels and the UK.
A Treasury official said the precise timing of the tax bill had not yet been determined, but did not rule out that it would contain new breach clauses. The “safety net” legislation should be in effect before the end of the transition period on January 1.
The new legislation would be placed alongside similar ‘notwithstanding’ clauses in the UK internal market bill. If the clauses were signed into law, they would nullify parts of the divorce agreement, a move that was condemned by many high-ranking conservatives and is the subject of legal action by the European Commission.
The clauses, which do not apply sections of the Northern Ireland protocol, are designed to set limits on the implementation of the agreement that creates a regulatory trade border in the Irish Sea and leaves the UK region following EU customs rules.
Johnson has said the clauses are needed as a “safety net” to prevent the EU from enforcing the protocol in a way that unacceptably undermines the UK’s constitutional cohesion and its internal market.
The EU has said Johnson must live up to the obligations it agreed to to secure the withdrawal agreement.
