Barnier and Frost talk at last

Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle / CC BY-SA
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

Jane Lambert

Negotiations for a new partnership between the Europen Union and the United Kingdom took place in Brussels between 2 and 5 March 2020 (see Negotiation rounds on the future partnership between the European Union and the United Kingdom).  Those negotiations were due to continue through March and April 2020 as set out in the Terms of Reference on the UK-EU Future Relationship Negotiations). For various reasons, those negotiations did not resume until 15 April 2020.

According to a Joint statement by EU and UK negotiators following the videoconference on 15 April 2020, the two sides took stock of the technical work that has taken place since the first negotiating round on the basis of the legal texts exchanged by both sides.  The reference to an "exchange of texts" is interesting because the public was aware of a draft agreement that had been proposed by the Commission on 18 March 2020.  The initial British response was that a legal text covering the outstanding areas would be produced at a time of the British government’s choosing  (see Jane Lambert EU's Draft Agreement on a New Partnership with the UK 29 March 2020).  That text, which is still to be published, apparently contained major areas of convergence as well as divergence.

The negotiators agreed to continue negotiations by video conference on the weeks commencing 20 April, 11 May and 1 June. Each negotiating round will last a week rather than the much shorter periods set out in Annex B to the Terms of Reference.

The parties also welcomed the first meeting of the Joint Committee (Implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement - Joint Committee's First Meeting  31 March 2020) and that the proper and timely implementation of the withdrawal agreement including the Northern Ireland Protocol was a key priority for both sides.

Also on 15 April 2020, the Managing Director of the IMF called for the negotiating period to be extended beyond the 31 Dec 2020 because of the "unprecedented uncertainty" arising from the pandemic.  Mr Frost tried to slap down any suggestion of this kind on twitter:

Extending would simply prolong negotiations, create even more uncertainty, leave us liable to pay more to the EU in future, and keep us bound by evolving EU laws at a time when we need to control our own affairs. In short, it is not in the UK's interest to extend. 2/2

— David Frost (@DavidGHFrost) April 16, 2020

Well that may be Mr Frost's view and it is possibly even his instructions but the world has changed. Coronavirus has laid waste to Italy and Spain but the damage to those countries is greatly exceeded by the loss of life and economic destruction that it has wrought in the USA. America is in no position to make good our restricted access to the European single market. When the facts change maybe the policy should change with them.

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