London and Brussels this week launched several months of tough, closed-door negotiations to hammer out a broad agreement setting out the post-Brexit relationship.
France’s former European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau has warned that a no deal Brexit is still on the table, as London and Brussels held the first day of what could be months of tortuous talks aimed at forging a new post-divorce relationship.
She said in a Twitter post on Sunday: “I don’t think anybody in the EU underestimates the risk of a no deal. It is undoubtedly real.
“Yes, indeed, the UK might very well threaten to hurt itself badly.
“A more pragmatic approach is still possible, as for the EU there is no doubt that no deal would be better than a bad deal.”
Ms Loiseau, a member of the European Parliament, was reacting to a tweet posted by the Financial Times earlier in the day warning that the UK’s “threat to walk out of EU trade talks is real”.
The bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his British counterpart David Frost met in Brussels to kick off the crunch talks on Monday, but timing remains tight and the two sides remain far apart on key issues.
In an apparent effort to ease tensions, Mr Barnier said the bloc approached “these negotiations in a constructive spirit.”
He said after the meeting: “We want to agree an ambitious and fair partnership”.
A UK spokesman said Mr Frost and his team of negotiators would “engage constructively to reach a free trade agreement which fully respects the UK’s political and regulatory autonomy.”
The two negotiating teams have two days to cover 11 key topics for the future relationship this week.
The next round of talks is to be held in London, and thereafter alternate between the two capitals.
The talks began just over a month after Britain officially quit the EU, and are meant to come to a close by the end of this year – a timeframe that few in Brussels see as feasible for anything other than a bare-bones accord.
The deadline is December 31, the end of the UK’s so-called transition period during which it trades like an EU member with no tariffs or other barriers.
But while the EU27 have insisted they will not be pressured into signing a bad post-Brexit deal with the UK just for the sake of meeting Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s deadline; the Johnson government has ruled out extending the limbo period.
The negotiations have already been clouded by weeks of tough talk as each side has accused the other of backtracking on key goals set out in a political declaration struck last year.
Mandates published last week underscored the EU’s determination to secure a “level playing field” to prevent Britain from undercutting European standards on labour, tax, environment and state subsidies.
The UK, for its part, refuses to align itself to EU rules and regulations in the name of “economic and political independence”.
If no free trade deal is reached by the December deadline, economic pain will be felt on both sides, experts have warned.
The UK and EU would default to basic trading rules under the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which would entail customs tariffs, quotas and cumbersome paperwork.