After his electoral triumph, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is
close to being able to claim he "got Brexit done." But can he rush
through the complex negotiations on Britain's new relationship with
the European Union in just 11 months?
Brussels/London (dpa) - Many EU leaders have welcomed the certainty
brought by Prime Minister Boris Johnson's sweeping victory in a snap
election that gave his Conservatives a large parliamentary majority,
making passage of Brexit legislation largely a formality.
Since the election, Johnson has shown British voters his
determination to complete Brexit by the end of 2020, with a promise
to enshrine in law the deadline to negotiate a new deal on future
relations.
That leaves him just 11 months from January 31, the date agreed for
Britain to begin the formal severance of its ties to the European
Union. Throughout this transition period, little will change as EU
law continues to apply to Britain.
Many analysts say that timetable is all but impossible, warning that
negotiations on future relations between London and Brussels could
drag on for years.
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who will lead the talks for
Brussels, reportedly called the end-of-2020 goal "unrealistic,"
adding that, with so little time, "we cannot do it all."
"We will do all we can to get what I call the 'vital minimum' to
establish a relationship with the UK if that is the time scale,"
British daily The Independent quoted Barnier as saying in a leaked
recording.
Given the short time frame, the EU will prioritize those issues where
there is the risk of an "economic cliff-edge" at the end of 2020,
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said following the
British election.
The priority areas are those where "we have neither an international
framework to fall back on, nor the possibility to take unilateral
contingency measures," she added.
A bare-bones deal on core issues would likely centre on a basic free
trade deal, coupled with so-called level playing field provisions -
British pledges not to undercut EU standards - as well as governance
issues spelling out how the agreement is enforced, plus the thorny
question of EU fishing access to British waters.
Britain will face difficult trade-offs in the negotiations, with many
eurosceptic Conservatives believing that "the main benefits of Brexit
are the greater capacity to deregulate," according to former British
EU ambassador Ivan Rogers.
"The publicly avowed Johnson intention is to be much more distant
from the EU, and to adopt a model on both goods and services which is
substantially more divergent from EU rules and standards," he said in
a pre-election speech at the University of Glasgow.
Parallel negotiations would address internal and external security
issues, such as how Britain interacts with EU police agency Europol
or with European extradition requests, and what access London could
have to EU security databases.
However, many warn of the challenging timetable Johnson has set
himself.
"This is all a bit 'cloud-cuckoo-land'," said one EU diplomat on
condition of anonymity. "In Brussels, hardly anyone believes that it
is possible in 11 months to negotiate a comprehensive deal on
Britain's future relationship with the EU."
The artificial threat of a cliff edge at the end of 2020 could
backfire on Britain, as it stands to lose more than the EU, the
diplomat argued.
All that could be negotiated in the time available is customs-free
trade between Britain in the EU, while nothing much can be expected
on services, estimated Juergen Matthes of the Cologne Institute for
Economic Research in Germany.
This would lead to "significantly higher hurdles" for services
industries from 2021, which would be a particular blow for London's
financial centre, Matthes added.
Even then, 11 months might not leave enough time to finalize and
ratify even a bare-bones trade agreement. Such a "no-deal" scenario
for the end of 2020 still leaves businesses facing the prospect of
more economic chaos and uncertainty.
In Britain, meanwhile, the 2016 vote for Brexit, by a majority of 52
per cent, precipitated a political crisis which Johnson hopes will
end after his recent election victory.
"The time of Remain resistance is over: there is now no viable
political - or legal - path to Brexit being blocked," prominent
British legal commentator David Allen Green wrote in a post-election
blog post, referring to those who want Britain to stay in the EU.
Green said the Conservative government, by ruling out any extension
of the negotiating period beyond 2020, was once again "displaying the
self-limiting bravado that served it so badly in the exit process."
The main opposition Labour party has accused Johnson of deliberately
"resurrecting the threat of no-deal [Brexit] next year."
Rogers, who was involved in the early stage of Brexit negotiations,
forecast that "the biggest crisis of Brexit to date actually still
lies ahead of us in late 2020."
"Given Britain's stance, the fear is unfortunately that the Brexit
drama will continue in the coming year," the EU diplomat added.