Andrew Parsons/Pool
EPA-EFE/REX
European Union Council President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson talk during the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.
BRUSSELS — European Union officials were astonished this past week when British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed to be “encouraged by the progress” of critical, last-ditch Brexit negotiations.
Nothing is under negotiation, they said, because he hasn’t bothered to make any suggestions.
Europeans listened to Johnson accuse the British Parliament of destroying his leverage by removing the threat of a no-deal withdrawal and pushing for another Brexit extension beyond the Oct. 31 deadline.
But Johnson undermined his own position by failing to follow through on promised proposals for discussion, the Europeans said.
And now, after wild weeks of political trench-fighting in London, many Brexit policymakers in the E.U. capital of Brussels and around Europe say Johnson’s take-no-prisoners political approach has torpedoed what little remaining trust they placed in the British political system.
“Perhaps it’s for domestic use. But everybody reads the British papers,” said Anne Mulder, a Dutch lawmaker who leads Brexit planning in his country’s parliament. “He’s totally unrealistic. He’s saying if you don’t do what I say, I’ll commit suicide. There are no negotiations with this government.”
The British House of Commons passed a bill Sept. 4 seeking to avert a no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 in another setback for prime minister Boris Johnson’s plan.
European officials are more than exasperated, according to eight diplomats and other officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive discussions. When Johnson came to power in July, many Europeans hoped he would be more adept than his predecessor, Theresa May, in getting Parliament to support a deal to manage Britain’s withdrawal from the trade bloc. Instead, Johnson has sought to sideline Parliament by suspending it for five weeks ahead of the Brexit deadline.
At the same time, he has told the British public that his Brexit negotiators have been hard at work — and making headway.
“I’ve been negotiating over the past five weeks to get us a new deal,” Johnson said in a video posted Thursday on Twitter. “E.U. leaders were willing to negotiate a new deal because they knew we were willing to leave on October the 31st, deal or no deal.”
E.U. officials deny having offered a new deal — or even to substantially amend the deal negotiated over two years with May.
Johnson’s primary objection is to the so-called backstop — a last-resort provision designed to prevent the reemergence of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland and to maintain the commitments of the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement. In an Aug. 19 letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, Johnson wrote that the backstop, which would keep Britain closely tied to the E.U. for an indeterminate time, is “anti-democratic and inconsistent with the sovereignty of the U.K.”
Johnson promised German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron last month to come up with an alternative means to maintain an open the border. He seemed earnest enough that the leaders came away thinking he did not want to leave the E.U. without a deal, according to advisers briefed on their assessments.
Pool
Reuters
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron attend the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.
But so far, E.U. negotiators said, he has offered no ideas that would actually guarantee an open border.
Johnson’s Brexit negotiator, David Frost, met with his E.U. counterparts on Wednesday for more than five hours, but the only suggestions he made stripped away most of the backstop, leaving only a handful of bare-bones provisions including borderless travel and a single electricity market. But he offered no fresh ideas that would ensure that the border could remain open,
E.U. diplomats said.
Although the two sides planned to meet again on Friday at Britain’s request, the E.U. diplomats said it was probably more for show than for substance, given the tone earlier in the week.
Johnson’s lack of engagement has led to puzzlement about his strategy. Does he genuinely want a deal, but simply doesn’t have realistic ideas about how to get one? Or is it a big bluff, and is he deliberately steering his country toward a Brexit without a safety net?
European policymakers increasingly believe the answer is the latter. And they worry about being set up to take the blame.
“There is a lot of bluffing. Most of it is for internal consumption,” said a senior E.U. diplomat. “But the E.U. is not going to push them out.”
They also see little point in further discussions if Britain is headed for a general election, since any agreements made now could swiftly be repealed by the winner of the vote.
Johnson is pressing for a snap election ahead of a Brexit-focused summit of E.U. leaders that begins Oct. 17. He has argued that the British people should have their say on who represents them at the meeting.
But any agreement hammered out at the summit would almost surely come too late if Britain is leaving the E.U. on Oct. 31, European officials said. Both the British and the European parliaments would need to approve a deal, a process that would likely take several weeks.
E.U. officials said that if Johnson — or any British leader — asked for an extension beyond the Halloween deadline, he would almost surely receive one, if there were a clear rationale for doing so. Despite some tough talk from Macron and others ahead of previous extensions this year, no E.U. leader wants to be responsible for the chaos likely to be unleashed by a no-deal Brexit, diplomats said.
Neil Hall/Pool
EPA-EFE/REX
French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte Macron, greet British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G-7 summit in Biarritz, France, last month.
Johnson, though, said on Thursday he’d “rather be dead in a ditch” than request further delay.
Even setting aside the uncertainty about events, there is deep skepticism in Europe that Johnson can be held to his word, and there are concerns about the health of British democracy.
“A lot of the bridges have been burned. There is a real feeling within the E.U. that Britain cannot be trusted, because the British system cannot be trusted,” said Fabian Zuleeg, the head of the European Policy Center, a Brussels-based think tank. “It is difficult to imagine that any commitment that is made by the leadership can be trusted, because we have seen in the last month how quickly that can change.”
The problem, European officials say, is that the British discussion still bears little relationship to the reality of what the E.U. is willing to agree to.
“Some members of the British Parliament are living in a fantasy world,” said Mulder, the Dutch lawmaker. “They want to be outside the European Union and keep all the advantages. Which is impossible. And if you live in this dream, then it is very difficult to negotiate, because it is not realistic.”
Quentin Ariès contributed to this report.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/boris-johnsons-statements-about-the-state-of-brexit-negotiations-bear-little-relationship-to-reality-eu-officials-say/2019/09/06/2122453e-cfec-11e9-a620-0a91656d7db6_story.html
2019-09-06 11:01:10Z
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