Brexit negotiations urge delay for "no sufficient progress", Juncker says

7 years ago - Published in Finance, Fundamental Analysis

EU taxpayers should not be made to pay for the U.K.’s decision to leave the bloc, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament on Tuesday, adding that there had not yet been “sufficient progress” in the negotiations.

In a short speech to open the Parliament’s plenary debate on Brexit in Strasbourg, Juncker emphasized his intention to stick to the bloc’s hard lines on key divorce issues. “The taxpayers of the EU27 should not pay for the British decision,” he told MEPs.

The president remarked on the “optimistic note” struck by Prime Minister Theresa May in her speech in Florence last month but said, “speeches are not negotiating positions,” and added that “the devil will be as always in the details.”

Juncker said that he recognized that there had been progress on some issues in the fourth round of talks in Brussels last week, notably on the rights of EU citizens in the U.K., but he said they had yet to agree the “indispensable role” of the European Court of Justice in guaranteeing those rights. EU leaders are due to deliver their verdict at the European Council meeting later this month on whether there has been sufficient progress in the talks to move on to phase two on the U.K.’s future relationship with the bloc.

European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt also lamented what he called divisions in May's government.
"I'm really worried about the lack of clarity and disunity on the other side of the negotiation table," the former Belgian prime minister said.

On Tuesday morning MEPs backed a motion by 557 votes to 92 that said negotiations should not be allowed to progress to the future relationship between the UK and the European Union unless there is a "major breakthrough."

The Parliament does not have an active role in negotiations and its vote today is not binding. However, it does make it very clear that the EU's only directly-elected body is unsatisfied with the talks so far, and will be a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May following her key Brexit speech in Florence, which was an attempt to break the deadlock.

The Parliament will vote to either approve or reject the final deal agreed between the EU and the UK at the end of Article 50 negotiations in 2019.