Picture copyright AFP Picture ca
Picture copyright
AFP
UK lead negotiator David Frost (L) appeared with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier when the talks began on Monday
Greater than 100 British negotiators are heading residence from Brussels after the primary week of talks with the EU over the longer term relationship with the UK.
The 2 sides sound fairly constructive and seem to agree on some technicalities in areas like transport and power.
However there are some large disagreements about some large issues.
The 2 sides agree that their new free commerce settlement ought to embrace measures to make sure truthful financial competitors between them.
The EU desires this to be carried out by referring to present EU requirements in some coverage areas – that are additionally UK requirements – for now. They’d be used as a “reference level” to guage whether or not future requirements had modified or not.
The UK sees this as being requested to comply with EU guidelines in perpetuity – “dynamic alignment by one other title”, mentioned a British official. The Brits additionally suppose it could show inconceivable to work out in 5 or 10 years’ time whether or not new EU and British guidelines had been related or not.
Legislation enforcement
If the delicate private knowledge of EU residents, resembling DNA or prison information, goes to be shared with the UK for crime-fighting functions, then the EU desires the European Court docket of Justice (ECJ) to be the last word arbiter of the principles.
The EU additionally desires the European Conference on Human Rights (ECHR) to use.
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The UK doesn’t need the ECJ to be talked about anyplace in any deal. It additionally says that committing to the ECHR in a global settlement ties the federal government’s arms at a time when it is finishing up its personal overview into the operation of human rights legislation within the UK.
Governance: One deal or many?
The UK says most nations work together with the EU by way of a collection of separate agreements masking particular person coverage areas. Particular person agreements include their very own phrases and circumstances and technique of settling disputes. This is able to be the best technique to handle completely different areas which have completely different wants, London argues.
The EU desires one giant settlement with an ordinary mechanism for settling disagreements, with the choice of referring questions of EU legislation to the European Court docket of Justice. This is able to be the best technique to handle completely different areas with completely different wants, Brussels argues. It might even be simpler to get by the European Parliament and nationwide parliaments.
It’d sound like a pedantic row but it surely’s a binary selection with no room for compromise, which suggests it might collapse the entire course of.
Fish
That is turning out to be a large disagreement.
The EU desires to “uphold” its present rights to fish in British waters, and for these rights to be protected for a number of years. In idea, that is to provide some predictability to a precarious business.
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It additionally thinks this could keep away from having to have annual negotiations over all of the fish shares that exist in British and European waters, which might be impractical.
The UK desires to use a unique mannequin referred to as zonal attachment, the place the UK would have full management over entry to its waters.
A senior EU official recommended that European governments must resolve whether or not to vary their strategy if the UK does not change its place.
The UK suspects the EU continues to be working underneath assumptions from the Theresa Could period. EU diplomats fears the UK is making ready to stroll out in a couple of months’ time, and in charge it on Brussels.
Individually, the Joint Committee that oversees the Withdrawal Settlement can have its first assembly on 30 March. The EU is demanding proof that the UK is implementing the Eire protocol, which requires particular remedy for Northern Eire.
Looming over all of it is the specter of disruption from coronavirus. The negotiating groups have not mentioned what they’d do in that case.
However they’ve stopped shaking arms, simply in case.