EU takes tough approach to Brexit as talks enter key weeks

Press quote (The Daily Mail)
20 November 2017

Michel Barnier told a conference in Brussels that London needs to provide clear proposals soon to find a way for the UK to leave the EU in 2019 but still have a transparent, open border between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

 

"Those who wanted Brexit must offer solutions," Barnier told a Centre for European Reform conference in Brussels.

On Monday, he dashed British hopes that the EU is prepared to make big compromises, saying the bloc's legal rules and commitments had to be respected. And he said there was no point in him being lenient, since EU nations, their legislators and the European Parliament will have to approve any deal, too.

Barnier warned that Britain would not get the close free-trade deal it seeks with the EU unless it stuck to a "European model" of the economy. Some British advocates of Brexit want the UK to adopt a low-tax, light-regulation free-market economic model once it leaves the bloc.

"Does it want to stay close to the European model or does it want to gradually move away from it?" Barnier asked. He said Britain's answer could be decisive since it will "shape also the conditions for ratification of that partnership in many national parliaments and obviously in the European Parliament.

"I do not say this to create problems but to avoid problems," he said.