#Brexit: Davis says ‘deep and special relationship’, or no financial settlement

Prime Minister Theresa May’s ‘Florence Speech’ heavily trailed and the cause of a further delay to Article 50 negotiations, received a qualified welcome from the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier. Comments of David Davis, Minister for Exiting the EU, over the weekend and yesterday’s (26 September) pre-negotiation statement, indicate that the UK just doesn’t get it, writes Catherine Feore.

Citizens’ Rights

At the beginning of round 4 of the Brexit negotiations David Davis said the EU-27/UK agreement would be incorporated fully into EU law and that steps would be taken to ensure consistent interpretation. He also anticipated progress on the onward movement of UK citizens in Europe and enabling voting in local elections.

Davis asserted that the UK and EU-27 ‘both want to make sure that there are no changes to the way citizens enjoy their rights and our proposals will do this’. While the EU-27 does want to protect citizens rights as its top priority, it has called for those rights to be protected by the European Court of Justice – whether the UK will be willing to move on this remains to be seen, but at this moment it appears unlikely.

A deep and special relationship, or no financial settlement.

The EU-27 in their guidelines and through their chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, have repeatedly made it clear that there will be no discussion about the future relationship between the UK and the EU-27 until there is ‘sufficient progress’ on the first phase of negotiations, that is progress on the three main issues (citizens’ rights, financial settlement and Ireland/Northern Ireland border). However, Davis has said that a final deal on the financial settlement can only be resolved in the context of a future deep and special partnership with the European Union. The UK appears to be using the financial settlement as a negotiating chip for any future deal. The EU-27 will not like the conditionality of this statement, but it may be possible to find a form of words that would make it easier for the UK to present this deal. After all, the EU-27 have repeatedly said that they do want a close relationship in future.

However, Michel Barnier in his opening statement repeated the distinction that the EU is making between withdrawal and any future arrangement between the EU-27 and UK.

Barnier met with the European Parliament’s Brexit team and with EU-27 ministers preparing the ground for October’s summit. Matti Maaskias, Estonian Deputy Prime Minister for EU Affairs, said after the meeting that EU-27 unity has been strong from the preparatory stage onwards. When asked about Northern Ireland, he said that support for Ireland will be unwavering throughout the process.

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