Burnham needs public consent for his EU reset, says Brexit negotiator Barnier

Por Clea Caulcutt, Jon Stone — POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO

PARIS — Andy Burnham needs to get the British Parliament involved before pressing for a closer relationship with the European Union, according to Michel Barnier, the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator.

Barnier, who represented the EU in fraught Brexit talks for over four years, told POLITICO that leaving the bloc “was a sovereign decision by the British people, and so any reopening of talks has to be a sovereign decision of the United Kingdom.”

“Andy Burnham and his government need to clarify their intentions and debate them in the House of Commons and the House of Lords,” he said of the British prime minister.

Though Burnham has said the U.K. will stick with the 2024 Labour Party manifesto’s position on Brexit, which promises to stay out of the bloc’s customs union and its single market, he has in recent weeks signaled that he is willing to go beyond those red lines in the future — including a wholesale push to rejoin the EU.

That declaration electrified the Brexit debate and raised the stakes of the U.K.-EU summit set for Nov. 20. European leaders like France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez responded by welcoming the plan to unpick Brexit, while Brexit opponents such as MP Emily Thornberry have called for rejoining the EU to feature in the next Labour election manifesto.

But Barnier, who was often caricatured by Britain’s right-wing tabloids as “the most dangerous man in Europe” or called “Dr. No” for his refusal to give in to British demands, said it’s way too early to celebrate bringing the U.K. back into the fold.

He also said that even if the British clarify their intention to rejoin in the future, they must be clear-eyed about how long and “very complicated” it would be to go down the labyrinthine legal, bureaucratic and political path of accession that he spent years of his life untangling.

“When the British left Europe … they left 600 international agreements,” he said.

It would be “welcome back, but there are conditions attached,” Barnier added.

No ‘à la carte’

Researchers from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research estimate that Brexit cost 6% to 8% in GDP growth over close to 10 years. Headline public support in the U.K. for rejoining the bloc is quite high, with pollster YouGov finding 59% support reentry compared to 32% who want to stay out.

But reversing the vote isn’t easy, as Barnier explained. Politically, some MPs representing areas of the country that voted leave have said it would be wrong to reopen the issue of membership. Reform U.K. leader Nigel Farage, Brexit’s most prominent advocate, slammed Burnham’s move as “a very big political mistake” that would give him “the biggest boost” of his career.

Yet despite his words of warning, Barnier, who now serves as a French lawmaker after a brief stint as the country’s prime minister, said he always “regretted” Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

“Brexit was a lose-lose game, and I would like us to somehow build a win-win game,” he said.

The United Kingdom, he said, “knows very well” the conditions attached to joining the single market, the customs union or the EU.

“There’s no single market à la carte,” he said, referring to the single market that allows goods, services, capital and people to move freely among members. Customs union agreements, like what the EU has with Turkey and Andorra, remove duties on goods traded internally and set common tariffs on imports from outside. But customs union and single market members who are not in the EU cannot vote on European legislation that sets the rules.

The clock is ticking

Before Burnham can move on to big questions like EU membership, he will need to conclude a series of less glamorous agreements in time for the Nov. 20 meeting. Talks on the agreements, covering trade in food, carbon markets, and visas for young people, were started by his predecessor Keir Starmer.

The summit “illustrates the new dynamic encourage by Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s opennesss” Barnier said.

“Before talking about rejoining the bloc, there are lots of things we can do with the United Kingdom,” said Barnier. “We can cooperate on foreign policy, on defense … it’s even possible that the U.K. will be included in our big investments on artificial intelligence.”

“All that is open today,” he added.

But not all the topics have been straightforward. While emissions trading talks are all but finished, the youth visas issue is proving harder to nail down. The U.K. wants a cap on the number of people who can use any new scheme, while the EU wants it to include cuts to the level of tuition fees paid by European students studying at British universities.  

The negotiations have also been hampered by British demands for assurances over forthcoming Made in Europe rules — guarantees which Brussels says it cannot yet give. 

In a final note of caution, Barnier said Europeans should watch closely the direction of travel in terms of U.K. rules and regulations.

“It’ll be more complicated if the British diverge from European regulation. Currently it’s their right to do so,” he said.

“We need to tread carefully,” he said.

Fonte: POLITICOPolitics » POLITICO