France’s foreign affairs minister blasted the UK’s negotiating team for having an 'uncompromising and unrealistic attitude'
Source- Daily Telegraph 31/08/20
Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, is refusing to open discussions on Britain's new fisheries proposals until the UK budges on other issues, it has emerged.
Mr Barnier, who is meeting David Frost, the UK's lead negotiator, in London on Tuesday, is insisting on "parallelism" – where multiple aspects on a range of issues must be agreed before moving forward.
Britain is keen to move on and progress talks, and the pair are meeting outside of the scheduled negotiating timetable to try to straighten out the stagnated talks with the official, eighth round resuming in London on Monday September 7.
The UK had wanted a deal done at the end of July and Mr Barnier says an agreement has to be in place by the end of October for it to be ratified around Europe by the end of the year.
Fisheries remains just one of the main sticking points, and if there is no deal by October, European fishermen will be completely excluded from British waters under international law, causing a devastating impact on their fishing communities.
Brussels is also fearful that state-funded British companies will have an unfair advantage over European ones in the EU market and wants to get the UK to commit to a so-called “level playing field”.
Whether or not the EU's top courts will regulate the trade deal is also a red line for either side.
It came as France’s foreign affairs minister blasted the UK’s Brexit negotiating team for having an “uncompromising and unrealistic attitude.”
Jean-Yves le Drian is one of the first major voices from an EU government to speak out after Mr Barnier started phoning around EU capitals to demand they step in and support him.
Additionally, during the same address to French ambassadors, the country’s state secretary for Europe, Clement Beaune, said “we’re not moving on our position, we can’t be weak.”
Mr Frost is expected to express his frustration at Brussels’ refusal to discuss proposals on how to manage fish stocks.
“The EU has always said that fishing is a key issue for resolution but has subsequently declined to discuss it,” a source told The Times. “We had hoped to make progress and presented room papers but, unfortunately, the EU refused to engage due to their self-imposed requirements.”
Last week, German chancellor Angela Merkel said she expects her team to be busy with Brexit “until the end of the year”.
Her country holds the rolling six months presidency of the EU Council however and decided to remove Brexit from a meeting of deputy ambassadors taking place this week here in Brussels.
It was deemed that there had not been enough progress in the negotiations to make it worthwhile.
A decision now sits with EU Council president Charles Michel about whether to put Brexit on a special summit called for later in September.
It was called to talk about Greece and Cyprus’s concerns about Turkey’s gas exploration missions in their waters.
But with Mr Barnier demanding leaders step in, and the clock running out in the negotiations, the two-day summit may be hijacked by Brexit.
EU sources told the Telegraph the decision on the agenda for the summit will be made after next week’s Brexit talks in London
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