EU’s ‘not hostile’ to Britain (well, maybe a little)

Brussels isn’t in a combative mood, says Commission president. Not everyone got the memo.

STRASBOURG — Brussels is not spoiling for a Brexit fight in the wake of Theresa May’s hardline speech.

That was the message from the upper echelons of the EU. But scratch the surface and there was plenty of anger at the British prime minister’s call for a hard, clean Brexit.

“We as a Commission, and Michel Barnier, our chief negotiator, we are not in a hostile mood,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said at a news conference in the European Parliament in Strasbourg Wednesday. “We want a fair deal with Britain, and a fair deal for Britain. But a fair deal means a fair deal for the European Union, too.”

Juncker, who spoke with May Tuesday evening, said he was glad that she had clarified some elements “from this unclear landscape” in Tuesday’s speech, but reiterated his personal unhappiness about Brexit.

“Our basic position is the same,” he said. “We will start to negotiate after the triggering of Article 50 and then we’ll see. It will be a very, very, very difficult negotiation because Britain has to be considered as a third country, which I am not used to expressing myself in these terms. I am unhappy about this, but that’s the situation we are in, but we will make the best of it.”

Sitting along from Juncker in Strasbourg was Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, and said he did not take May’s speech as “a declaration of war.”

Muscat, a former MEP, said any Brexit deal had to be inferior to EU membership. “Thinking it can be otherwise would indicate a detachment from reality,” he said.

There were calm words too from Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, who had kind words for May on Twitter, comparing her to Winston Churchill and contrasting her approach with that of President-elect Donald Trump, who had wondered which countries would follow the U.K. out of the EU.

But Tusk, who also spoke with May on Tuesday evening, made it clear that the EU’s message had been heard loud and clear.

“PM May’s speech proves that unified EU27 position on indivisibility of Single Market finally understood and accepted by London,” he wrote.

Others were less kind.

Manfred Weber, the German MEP who heads the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, accused May of “cherry-picking” in terms of what she wants from the UK’s relationship with the EU.

He said the British PM “was clearly saying that she wants to have a trade agreement which is a copy and paste of the single market. So she doesn’t want to have any change in the trade relations.

“She doesn’t want to have the further, let me say, legislative problems from Brussels … but we cannot accept that a free trade agreement is at the same level like we have today in the trade relationships …That’s why I say it is cherry-picking.”

Guy Verhofstadt, leader of the European Parliament’s Liberal ALDE group and the Parliament’s Brexit negotiator, also accused May of “cherry-picking” the parts of EU membership she liked.

“I think it creates an illusion that you can go out of the single market and the customs union and you can cherry-pick and still have a number of advantages.

“I think this will not happen. We shall never accept a situation in which it is better to be outside the single market than be a member of the European Union.”

The Socialists and Democrats group in the Parliament said there were “serious problems” with May’s strategy.

“We will not allow the U.K.’s eventual new trading relationship with the EU to undercut worker’s rights, social or environmental protections. If the U.K. wants to continue to sell products into the EU market without tariffs or barriers then they will have to continue to respect EU standards in all these areas.”