BRUSSLES/LONDON: London and Brussels have not yet found a way of convincing British lawmakers to back the Brexit divorce deal, EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Wednesday following “difficult” talks with his British counterparts.
Barnier met late on Tuesday with British Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox as part of ongoing efforts to win over parliament on the deal struck by London and Brussels to regulate Britain’s exit from the European Union later this month.
“While the talks take place in a constructive atomosphere, discussions have been difficult,” Barnier told EU commissioners on Wednesday, according to European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas. “No solution has been identified at this point,” Schinas added.
British objections centre on so-called backstop provisions aimed at maintaining an open border on the island of Ireland. Fears have surfaced that these measures could lock Britain into a close relationship with the EU that it cannot unilaterally end.
British and EU negotiators are looking for guarantees that would allow Cox to change an earlier assessment that Britain could be locked “indefinitely” into the backstop, in the hope that this will convince parliament to back the deal.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised a vote on the issue by March 12, ahead of Britain’s planned March 29 departure from the EU.
The EU says it is prepared to offer assurances and clarifications, but has refused to change the nature of the backstop — an insurance policy designed only to take effect if the two sides fail to strike a trade deal in time.
Barclay said they had “a robust discussion,” with the talks now at a “sensitive point,” in comments to Sky News. Discussions were continuing at a technical level, he added.
“Both sides have exchanged robust, strong views and we are now facing the real discussions,” Cox told the broadcaster.
In Tuesday’s talks, the EU side “offered ideas on how to give further reassurances that the backstop, if used, will apply temporarily, only for as long as strictly necessary,” Schinas added.
In Britain, May announced a plan to protect workers’ rights after Britain leaves the EU, in her latest attempt to woo opposition Labour lawmakers ahead of next week’s crucial vote on her Brexit deal.
“The UK has a proud tradition of leading the way in workers’ rights,” May tweeted. “That’s why we’ve pledged new measures to protect and improve those rights as we leave the EU, giving parliament, unions and businesses an enhanced role in shaping workers’ rights after Brexit,” she said.
Labour, the main opposition party to May’s Conservatives, and trade unions dismissed her offer.
Frances O’Grady, head of the Trades Union Congress, said “no one should be taken in” by it.
“Today’s flimsy proposals won’t protect our rights at work or stop us falling behind the rest of Europe,” O’Grady said.
Len McCluskey, the head of Unite, one of Britain’s biggest unions, said it was “deeply disappointing that [the government] appears not to have listened to the concerns of trade unions.”
“The fact remains that workers in the UK have among the poorest protections in Europe, thanks to opt-outs by successive Westminster governments,” said McCluskey, a close ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Rebecca Long Bailey, Labour’s shadow business secretary, accused May’s Conservatives of an attempt to “bribe workers to back their botched Brexit deal. This is utterly unacceptable and workers and trade unions will not be fooled.”
Meanwhile, around 15,000 British citizens acquired the citizenship of another EU member state in 2017, the year after Britain voted to leave the European Union, according to data released on Wednesday.
The figure marks an increase of 127 per cent on the number of Britons receiving other EU passports in 2016, making it the highest surge among all nationalities, according to the EU statistics agency, Eurostat.
In 2017, 6,851 Britons were granted German citizenship, 1,733 became French nationals and 1,381 became Belgian citizens, followed by slightly lower numbers in the Netherlands and Sweden. Overall, around
825,000 people acquired an EU citizenship in 2017. — dpa
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