Not third time lucky - Brexit talks

While I was following with great interest the press conference featuring Mr Davis and Mr Barnier at the end of the third round of the Brexit talks, I couldn’t help but thinking of Josef K, the respectable bank officer who is arrested suddenly without committing any crime but must defend himself in courts without knowing what he is being charged for. I read the Kafka classic when I was teenager and the same anguish and confusion I felt back then I feel again today. Brexit is fast becoming an inexplicable event with surrealistic touches and I for one do not know exactly what to make of it anymore.

The UK arrived in Brussels this week demanding “flexibility and imagination”. The EU in return hoped for more realism and fewer magic thoughts. It is all very well and poetic but both sides need to be reminded that three rounds are done and dusted and little progress has been achieved regarding the basics of this divorce. You could sense from reading the notes of the press conference that things are not going well. Mr Davis can be as diplomatic and charming as he likes but he won’t be able to start further talks about trade deals without an agreement concerning EU citizens’ rights and the divorce bill. In his statement that follows the third round of negotiations for a new partnership with the EU, Davis cheerfully announces how much progress has been made in order to reach an agreement on the citizens’ rights issue. Still a priority he says. The problem for Mr Davis starts at home though. Around a hundred letters of deportation sent by the Home Office to EU citizens living in the UK. A mistake of course. A strange and suspicious one but nevertheless a perfect excuse for the EU to be inflexible regarding the ECJ as Mr Barnier said today; “It reinforces the need to ensure that citizens' rights are directly enforceable in front of national jurisdictions, under the control of the European Court of justice, a point on which we disagree today”. It is going to take more than imagination to sort this one out.

On the financial settlement there hasn’t been much clarity either. To make matters even more bizarre the UK government recognise that there are financial obligations with the EU that need to be settled but not so sure about the moral economical obligations. Moral? I am pretty sure morality has nothing to do with money and spiritual matters should be left aside to let the experts come up with a well-documented final bill. I am afraid both sides have failed so far to come up with any serious amount. How Kafkaesque on them! It must be really difficult to try to agree on something you haven’t figured out just yet.

Taking all this into consideration it is very probable that trade talks will not be starting any time soon. Barnier openly admitted that, given the current rate of progress or lack of it, he would not be advising EU leaders to let the talks move on to phase two in October. That is not good news for the UK and its economy. A delay in the process will weaken the government’s position. A position already obscure by their lack of direction and purpose. For me, they still haven’t manage to put into words what Brexit means in relation with the EU and the single market. Barnier stated in the press conference, “The UK wants to take back control, it wants to adopt its own standards and regulations. It also wants to have these standards recognised automatically in the EU. That is what UK papers ask for. This is simply impossible. You cannot be outside the single market and shape its legal order” A worrying sight when your opposition recognises straight away the flaws in your arguments. These flaws need to be addressed and corrected before the next meeting. If May and her collaborators do not do so, we will end up going around in circles on a clock that is ticking fast. Time is indeed against us all.

#Brexit