BRUSSELS (Belgium): Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage and other MEPs wave British flags (left) and EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier speaks ahead of the vote on the withdrawal agreement at the European Parliament on Wednesday.—Reuters
With a status-quo transition period running only until year-end, fresh talks — covering everything from trade to security — will begin soon on a new relationship.
“We are considering a zero-tariff, zero-quotas free trade agreement. But the precondition is that EU and British businesses continue to compete on a level playing field. We will certainly not expose our companies to unfair competition,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told the chamber.
Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier told envoys of the remaining 27 members earlier on Wednesday that a loose association agreement like the EU has with Ukraine should serve as the basis for new relations, diplomatic sources said.
“We will not give ground on issues that are important to us,” Barnier said, according to sources briefed on the closed-door meeting.
On his last working day as a member of the European Parliament, leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage told reporters there was “no going back” once the UK leaves.
“The UK didn’t fit, we’d be better off out,” he said, describing euroscepticism as a settled view in the UK, where “Leave” won the 2016 referendum by a narrow 52 to 48 per cent margin.
He said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised him there would be no so-called ‘level playing field’ clauses on fair competition in the new EU-UK deal, highlighting a major point of contention with the bloc in the coming talks.
As Farage beamed, his Brexit Party lawmakers waved goodbye to the chamber with mini Union Jack flags and chanted “Hurray!”, but their Socialist compatriot Jude Kirton-Darling choked back tears.
“It’s probably the saddest day of my life so far. Brexit is something that attacks the very foundation of our identity,” said Kirton-Darling, who plans to stay in Brussels with her Belgian husband.
Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal EU lawmaker from Belgium and a staunch europhile, lamented Brexit as a historic debacle: “It’s sad to see a country leaving that twice liberated us, twice gave its blood to liberate Europe.”
As a new reality dawns on Europe from Saturday, the UK’s Permanent Representation to the EU, or UKRep, will become a foreign mission — already dubbed “UKmissEU” by some.
Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2020