Brexit: EU puts pressure on London

One month after the British exit from the European Union, serious things are about to begin. The Twenty-Seven adopted in Brussels on Tuesday their mandate to negotiate a future free trade agreement with the United Kingdom, entrusted to the French Michel Barnier. He warns: "These will be complex, demanding, very difficult negotiations."

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Opposite, the British are already starting to rush into the stretchers. They denounce, through a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson, "heavy commitments" claimed from Britain to which other trading partners are not subject. The tension is based on the requirement for regulatory alignment expected from London with European standards in social, fiscal, environmental and public aid to companies. However, recalls Boris Johnson, "the main objective of the United Kingdom in these negotiations is to ensure that we can restore our economic and political independence by January 1, 2021". This very short period of time to reach a wanted “ambitious” agreement returns the pressure on the British side. Phlegmatic, Michel Barnier says he does not want to conclude "at all costs". "The pressure is not put on by us," he discards. According to French Minister of European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin, "if we cannot maintain this regulatory proximity, then we will have to apply tariffs or quotas" on British imports. Stating clearly that "it is not a question of revenge". 45% of British exports go to the European Union.

Boris Johnson will present his own negotiating mandate on Thursday. A first round of talks (out of a planned ten) will take place in Brussels next week, before a second in London in March. Michel Barnier also intends to remind Boris Johnson of his commitment, taken in the agreement on the exit from the EU, to control the goods sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.