Press

Udenrigspolitisk direktør Ian Bond fra tænketanken Centre for European Reform hæfter sig tilsvarende ved, at Theresa May ikke som en Margaret Thatcher kan svinge med håndtasken og presse sin vilje igennem i Bruxelles. ”Det påvirker dem betydeligt. En stærkere premierminister kunne sige til resten af Europa, at ’jeg har mandatet til at gøre, hvad jeg vil. Får jeg ikke min vilje, så går jeg’. Hun ville også kunne sige til tilhængerne af en hård Brexit (hvor briterne kapper alle bånd til EU, red.), at det vil være økonomisk katastrofalt, og at briterne derfor vil være nødt til at gå på kompromis med en økonomisk aftale. Men hun har intet,” siger Ian Bond.

 John Springford of the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, disagrees. “This document is a demand for derogation from free movement law,” he says. “It demands that EU citizens register, while UK citizens do not have to do so, violating non-discrimination rules.” He adds: “EU leaders were clear in the negotiating mandate that they gave to the commission that, should a prolongation of the acquis be required, then all rules and institutions and the entirety of single market and EU law would have to apply. The EU has no interest in negotiating a bespoke transition.”

“The key issue for ‘sufficient progress’ will be money,” said Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank. “The EU and the U.K. will have to agree on a methodology for calculating the amount that the UK must pay.” Such a methodology would have to be “detailed enough to reassure the EU … but vague enough so that journalists cannot easily work out a direct figure,” Grant added. EU estimates of this figure range from €65 billion net to €100 billion.

And that, as John Springford of the Centre for European Reform has argued, might be the worst possible outcome for hardliners. It would lead voters to conclude that Brexit was a terrible mistake after all -- an error that they might then decide to put right.

“Most German voters still have a very hard time understanding why British voters decided the leave the EU,” Christian Odendahl, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, and research fellow Sophia Besch wrote in a note. “They fail to see how retreating from a club of like-minded democratic countries gives Britain more control.”

Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, told the paper: 'Many top officials in the EU and governments would welcome an offer of €10 billion a year for three years as part of a transitional deal that would move the talks forward. 'If the British . . . make a serious offer on the money . . . they will not only put the EU on the defensive, they will also expose divisions on how to respond to the money deadlock.'