Britain, as a full EU member, enjoys membership of a lot of different EU agencies, over 40 I believe and many times, both before and after the campaign, I have heard ministers and commentators say we might want to retain membership of some of these agencies as if the EU is setting out some sort of a la carte menu for us to choose from. Personally, I have always had doubts that this would happen and this week at a security conference in Berlin, Barnier spelled things out for us.
He ruled out Britain retaining membership of Europol (HERE) and the European Defence Agency so we don't have a choice.
This is what he said:
"The UK can no longer be a framework nation: it will not be able to take command of EU–led operations or lead EU battlegroups. The UK will no longer be a member of the European Defence Agency or Europol. The UK will not be able to benefit from the European Defence Fund the same way Member States will. The UK will no longer be involved in decision-making, nor in planning our defence and security instruments. Everything I have just said is the logical consequence of the sovereign choice made by the British. We regret this vote. But we respect the choice that has been made.”
I would be surprised if this was only to apply to these two specific agencies and not be part of a wider principle, that only full EU members can enjoy the right to be a part of the EU's agencies. I think the phrase, "we respect the choice that has been made" will be thrown back in the face of the Brexiteers many times over the next couple of years as we lose access to more and more organisations and are forced to "take back control" by expensively creating - some would say duplicating - all of the EU agencies with equivalent British ones.
We will certainly gain control of our own money but we'll just spend it on the things we previously got as part of our EU membership.
And no doubt we will press hard to retain access to Europol or other EU administrative bodies and they may even allow this, but you can bet we will pay well above the price that other members pay - and no rebate either!
