Michel Barnier always seems to me to be a model of courtesy, clear thinking and logical deduction. How I wish we had on our side men or women of similar quality, but then if we did, we wouldn't have had Brexit because it just isn't a rational thing. Barnier has recently given a speech in Belgium which is printed in full on the EU website HERE.
As usual, it cuts straight to the main issues and in a few sentences sets out the choices the UK needs to make but hasn't been able to, after eighteen months of wrangling on this side of the Channel. He says he asks himself three questions about Brexit which I paraphrase below:
First, does the UK want an orderly or disorderly exit? He says the December 8th agreement showed we wanted an orderly exit - although listening to some of the more extreme voices in Brexitland, I'm not sure this is right.
Second, what kind of future relationship does the UK want? He says we still haven't set this out but by looking at our red lines together with EU law, says "the UK is itself closing the doors, one by one". This is going to leave us with a Canada style trade deal, and that will be it.
Thirdly, what does the UK want in the future? A close relationship with the EU or to diverge away from the European model? This will better define the second point, or even determine if we will have a trade deal or not.
It is amazing to me that we have made fairy step progress on the first question but virtually none on the last two, because after eighteen months we still don't know what we want. No wonder Barnier is still puzzled.
On the BBC this morning (HERE), it is reported that Hammond and Davis are off to Germany to speak at an economic forum today and they have written a joint article in a German newspaper pitching for a bespoke trade agreement including services and particularly financial services, something the EU have more or less ruled out. The essence of their argument is that erecting barriers will damage both sides and that Europe needs London to ensure it's own financial stability. I don't think this will go down well. A German politician has apparently already described the visit as the latest episode in the Brexit cake and eat it saga. How apt.
The Telegraph says Merkel is even against managed divergence HERE.
The talk of not to erect barriers will cause some eye rolling. This is taking a course of action you know your negotiating partner does not want, then warning him not to do what you have already done. It does not come across well.
And the suggestion that European financial stability is threatened if the UK does not have access to it also sounds a bit like blackmail. The EU are never going to allow themselves to become reliant on a third country for financial stability. They will build their own stability inside the bloc. But more than this, the Davis/Hammond visit comes just one day after Barnier in his speech says:
"A country leaving this very precise framework and the accompanying supervision gains the ability to diverge from it but by the same token loses the benefits of the Internal Market. Its financial service providers can no longer enjoy the benefits of a passport to the Single Market nor those of a system of generalised equivalence of standards".
He must be sick and tired of repeating it as if he is addressing a spectacularly reluctant child.
Barnier also says something else he has said before, that the EU single market is 440 million consumers and 22 million businesses. It is also a regulatory powerhouse, setting standards that are often adopted internationally. Continental companies are well aware of the importance of having harmonised standards and proper enforcement of them. Harmonisation is ipso facto a good thing. It increases the size of the market and by doing so reduces costs, by permitting economies of scale, investment in automation and so on. British companies often just don't get it and politicians certainly don't.
Looking at Barnier's three questions one wonders if there is a future for us on the periphery of a powerful, global standard setting, trading bloc? We will be a destination for EU goods, often because they are the best and the cheapest, but will we be able to compete? I have serious doubts.
Finally. Farage met Barnier on Monday. You can read a report on the meeting HERE. Farage apparently said Michel Barnier "clearly did not understand why Brexit happened". Quite. He is not alone, sixteen million UK citizens feel the same way.
