Michel Barnier warns of ‘grave’ divisions on trade

Britain and the EU face ‘very grave and serious’ disagreements that could scupper a Brexit trade deal.

Michel Barnier in Brussels onThursday defends his demands for Britain to stay aligned to European legislation. Picture: AFP

Britain and the EU face “very grave and serious” disagreements that could scupper a Brexit trade deal, chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier said on Thursday, as the first round of talks concluded.

Mr Barnier said Britain’s stance on fishing, human rights and how a trade deal would be policed were profoundly at odds with his mandate. “To be completely frank, there are many divergences and they are very serious divergences,” he said.

The negotiations highlighted the government’s refusal to enshrine the European Convention on Human Rights in the final agreement.

The EU is demanding that ministers accept the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights as the price for criminal justice co-operation.

“They do not wish formally to commit to continuing to apply the ECHR, nor do they wish to permit the European Court of Justice to play its full role in interpreting EU law,” Mr Barnier said in reference to sharing crime data.

“This is serious. I say this is grave because if the UK’s position does not move it will have an immediate and concrete ­effect on the level of ambition of our co-operation.”

British sources said the EU, which is not a signatory to the ECHR, wanted Britain to agree on a new treaty clause that would interfere with how the court’s rulings were enforced in domestic law.

A government spokesman said while there were “expected, significant differences”, the final deal had to respect that the country would be outside the orbit of EU law or its courts.

Whitehall’s spending watchdog has said Brexit has so far cost the taxpayer more than £4bn.

In Brussels, Mr Barnier defended his demands for Britain to stay aligned to European legislation, with a role for the EU’s courts in enforcing alignment, particularly on state subsidies to industry and on competition policy.

“While we agree on preserving high standards, my question is why not commit to them formally? It is a question of trust,” he said.

“Nobody contests the UK’s independence.”

David Frost, the government’s chief negotiator, told Mr Barnier that the government would not accept “level playing field” demands that went beyond existing free-trade agreements and sought to use EU law as the point of reference. Britain opposes the EU’s proposal of a single, overarching legal structure for the deal, modelled on previous “association agreements” with countries such as Ukraine.

Mr Barnier wants such a structure because association agreements have an inbuilt orientation to EU law and are easier to ratify than Britain’s preferred option of a “suite of agreements”.

The Times