Brexit: Have the EU-UK trade talks hit a dead end?

After months of disputes and shadow fights, positions and misunderstanding of the other party’s fundamental priorities, are the negotiations really over?

Political Twitter is exploding with theories – that Prime Minister Boris Johnson never really wanted a deal in the first place, that the EU wasted its chances to come to terms with the missteps at last week’s summit, or that the Kingdom Kingdom is exaggerating – hoping the EU will “yield between 10 and midnight” in the negotiations …

Certainly, the last 24 hours have not played out as many seasoned observers of this very, very, very long Brexit process might have imagined.

Unlike Johnson’s decision on Friday to walk away from negotiations. That was half predicted, after the summit of EU leaders.

The prime minister had set the summit as a deadline (the EU considered it artificial) by which there should be a trade deal on the table. If not, Johnson said, he thought there would be no trade deal between the EU and the UK and “we should move on.”

No one I spoke to in EU circles in the run-up to the summit took that ultimatum too seriously.

Instead, they listed examples of promises and deadlines the prime minister had made and set and ultimately ignored in the past: walk away from negotiations in June if not enough progress was made, die in a ditch the year passed instead of extending the Brexit divorce talks. and more.

But I also detected a slight malaise in Brussels.

“You never know with Boris Johnson. Could you do something radical? Anything unexpected? I mean, look at the Internal Market Law!” muttered a contact from Brussels on the eve of the summit.

The government’s internal market bill released last month has provisions (the cabinet calls them a safety net) to nullify parts of the divorce settlement pertaining to Northern Ireland, which was agreed to and signed by the EU and Johnson the last year. The EU was shocked by the bill and started legal proceedings.

However, on Friday, when the prime minister insisted that it was pointless to continue negotiations unless the EU fundamentally changed its position, there was a widespread assumption in Brussels and parts of the UK that this was a political stance. .

Yes, the government had clear frustrations with the EU in its approach to the talks.

Yes, the EU was impatient with the UK due to a number of issues that came up in the negotiations.

But, the theory went, the final stage of negotiations would naturally be when both parties would publicly show their muscles on everything.

To show the national public at home that they would fight to the end … just before reaching a compromise agreement behind closed doors in the next few weeks.

We saw Frenchman Emmanuel Macron walk into the EU summit last week sounding intentionally tough on fish.

The written conclusions of the EU leaders’ summit deliberately placed on the UK the responsibility of making the compromises necessary to reach an agreement. And the prime minister responded that the EU had effectively ended the negotiations, unless it changed its position.

Most commentators assumed the talks would resume later this week after some diplomatic back and forth.

And just at the right time on Monday, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, offered to step up the talks (a big complaint from the UK has been that the EU has failed to deliver on a promise to truly accelerate the talks this autumn. ).

He also spoke about getting down to business on “legal texts.” Again, this was an overture for the UK, which has long complained that Brussels refused to start work on a joint legal text, despite the majority of the EU-UK deal already it had been remembered.

But instead of welcoming these moves, while you might be playing shy or hard to come by until the end of the week (as you might have felt it too early to “give in” after declaring the conversations over, so recently time) – Number Ten replied that, although welcome, the EU offer was insufficient.

Again there was a demand for a “fundamental change of approach by the EU”.

It’s a lot harder to get out of this than last week’s bilateral fist move. The EU has already made its proposals. It is unlikely that it will go much further unilaterally.

Depending, of course, on what the UK means by ‘fundamental change of approach’.

If the government is looking for the EU to stop insisting on agreed competition rules, or at least common “principles”, also known as a level playing field, Downing Street must know that this is not going to happen, and negotiations They are over.

The UK says it no longer wants to be bound by “Brussels rules”, but it is not unusual to agree competition regulations with trading partners. The UK has a state aid deal in its post-Brexit trade deal with Japan. He is calling for a level playing field provisions in a future agreement with the United States.

If pressed, the EU can further dilute its demand for what it calls “fair competition” rules. Brussels has already moved in certain respects, but it will never completely stop asking.

Protecting the single market is more important for the EU (and for German car manufacturers, as we have been told) than a trade agreement with the UK.

And the EU feels it must protect its market and its businesses from potential “unfair competition” from the UK post-Brexit.

But, if what the government wants is for the EU to admit that it must also make commitments to reach an agreement, not just the UK, to get back to the negotiating table, then it is certainly doable. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said so last week.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who in the past has also spoken of bilateral engagement, could call Boris Johnson in the coming days.

Barnier has long pressured coastal member states to allow him to begin discussing fish commitments. Months ago, he openly admitted that the EU’s demand to maintain virtually the same fishing quotas in UK waters after Brexit was a “maximalist position”.

The EU negotiating team was well aware that it would be easier for Downing Street to discuss compromises on competition regulations, which are far more important to the EU as a whole than fish, after it became clear that Brussels would give way. to fishing quotas.

But coastal nations such as Spain and the Netherlands, and especially France, insisted that they would only start talking about quota commitments once the UK was “seriously involved” in the level playing field discussions.

Most importantly, these countries wanted fishermen at home to be fighting hard for their industry in trade negotiations with the UK.

That they would have to reach a compromise in the end is an open secret of the EU.

There are now bets among Brexit commentators on whether talks between the EU and the UK will resume, at the end of the week, or next week at the latest, or whether we are really heading towards a no-deal deal.

Knowing that, as economically important neighbors and trading partners, the EU and the UK will end up meeting at a negotiating table at some point, no matter what happens next.