EU to press May at summit, UK dismisses Brexit offer talk

[webfact]

EU to press May at summit, UK dismisses Brexit offer talk

By Jan Strupczewski and Elizabeth Piper

 

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and European Council President Donald Tusk attend a bilateral meeting at a European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium October 20, 2017. REUTERS/Olivier Hoslet/Pool

 

GOTHENBURG, Sweden (Reuters) - European Union leaders will press Theresa May to meet their conditions soon for launching post-Brexit trade talks when she holds talks on the sidelines of a summit in Sweden on Friday, EU officials said.

 

The British prime minister dismissed via a spokesman a report on Thursday that she was ready to raise her offer of cash to settle London's obligations to the Union on leaving but a top EU lawmaker said he came away from a meeting with May in London optimistic that Britain was moving towards a deal with Brussels.

 

At the Gothenburg talks devoted to labour and social reform, May will have a chance to speak to her peers on the sidelines -- though German Chancellor Angela Merkel will skip the event. A key moment may be May's meeting before lunch with Donald Tusk, the summit chair who is overseeing the withdrawal process.

 

Tusk will remind May, according to an EU source, that "time is short" to deliver on hopes raised at an EU summit in October that sufficient progress would be made toward agreeing divorce terms this month that leaders would give a green light in mid-December to opening talks on the future relationship.

 

The Union's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said he needs to hear more from Britain on three key divorce conditions, including the financial settlement, by the start of next month if the EU is to be in a position for all 27 other national leaders to trigger the second phase at a summit on Dec. 14-15.

 

EU officials have begun internal preparations to be able to launch trade negotiations after the summit, the source noted, but added: "Tusk will inform May that such a positive scenario is not a given, will require more work and that time is short.

 

"And he will ask May how the UK plans to progress on the three key issues for Phase One."

 

MORE MONEY?

 

May's spokesman described as "speculation" a newspaper report that she was planning to spend another 20 billion pounds (26 billion euros) to settle EU demands for Britain to pay its share of spending the EU has already agreed during British membership but will not actually pay out until after it leaves.

 

"I would say it is yet more speculation," he said. "We want to make progress as quickly as possible and we want to move onto talks about the future relationship as quickly as possible."

 

A further 26 billion euros would go a long way to meeting a demand that Brussels has put at around 60 billion euros. That is because May has already asked for a two-year transition period after Brexit in March 2019. That would bring in some 20 billion euros as Britain would go on contributing to the budget to retain its full membership of the European single market.

 

A Merkel ally in Brussels, Manfred Weber, the German leader of the centre-right bloc in the European Parliament, struck a notably upbeat tone after meeting May and other key British ministers in London on Tuesday. While insisting he had not heard concrete new proposals -- that is not his role -- he came away believing the British wanted to move toward a divorce deal.

 

"My main message is I am more optimistic," he told reporters. "There is progress."

 

As well as the Brexit "bill", Brussels also wants Britain to offer more in the way of rights for EU citizens living there and ensuring that its border with Ireland will remain unobstructed while also not creating a loophole in EU customs arrangements.

 

(Reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Brussels and Paul Sandle in London; Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-11-17

[phantomfiddler]

What an ungrateful bunch of a*s*h*l*s ! UK, with considerable assistance from America, saved their a*s*s from the loony with the moustache, and this is how they treat us ?

[flossie35]

How is WWII an excuse to renege on a debt? Nonsense.

[baboon]

1 hour ago, phantomfiddler said:

What an ungrateful bunch of a*s*h*l*s ! UK, with considerable assistance from America, saved their a*s*s from the loony with the moustache, and this is how they treat us ?

And ceded half of it to the other guy with the moustache...

[gamini]

3 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

What an ungrateful bunch of a*s*h*l*s ! UK, with considerable assistance from America, saved their a*s*s from the loony with the moustache, and this is how they treat us ?

Saved Poland from the Nazis and handed it over to the Russians was a far worse fate. Ask any Pole

[tomacht8]

Brexit is also the attempt 

to save the British their opaque money offshore system for the rich and the companies with tax avoidance intent.

 

Incidentally, the overseas territories are led by Foreign Minister Boris Johnson, the most prominent Brexit advocate in the Cabinet - and for the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, Justice Minister David Lidington, a former Remainer who changed his faith in the summer and changed to the EU opponents camp. 

As one result, Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton did not have to pay import tax on his Canadian-owned Bombardier private jet, which he imported through the Isle of Man.

 

The "Paradise Papers" show that many Brexit hardliners, especially the Conservatives, hate any financial regulation from Brussels. It is a disruptive factor for the British offshore system. Reason enough for EU skepticism and withdrawal thoughts. If they talk about global free trade, then they do not mean goods - but money, financial flows, the offshore system. A minor blow to the offshore system would be the Black List of tax havens promised by the European Commission by the end of the year. 

 

That the brexit has the intention to help the normal uk citizens to make better meats end, is an illusion.

So the hard-working and tax-paying Polish plumber is the enemy of Brexiters and not people like Michael Ashcroft, who didn't paid for his billion income any tax since many years.

[dunroaming]

2 hours ago, tomacht8 said:

That the brexit has the intention to help the normal uk citizens to make better meats end, is an illusion.

So the hard-working and tax-paying Polish plumber is the enemy of Brexiters and not people like Michael Ashcroft, who didn't paid for his billion income any tax since many years.

Nice rant!

 

Yes but.....  The majority of the people who voted for Brexit are the working classes, elderly and disillusioned  people who feel that Britain has lost it's sovereignty.  The Brexit politicians (especially Johnson) were playing a political game to remove Cameron and had no interest in the reality of what leaving would ultimately mean. In fact none of them actually believed they would win.

[Baerboxer]

7 hours ago, phantomfiddler said:

What an ungrateful bunch of a*s*h*l*s ! UK, with considerable assistance from America, saved their a*s*s from the loony with the moustache, and this is how they treat us ?

 

Yeah, in fact saved them from too crazy loonies with moustacches from that country in two generations.

 

And saved them from a small garlic smelling dwarf who wore his hat funny the century before, without American help that time. 

 

Should send them the bill, for all three, with interest.  

[dunroaming]

David Davis has been pleading with German businesses to get involved in pushing the trade talks forward.  Nobody was impressed though.  If the UK doesn't come up with the commitments over the money, Northern Ireland border and citizens rights soon then I fear the talks will fall apart completely.  Then the choices will be stark.  Walk away without a deal and destroy the economy or scrap Brexit altogether. 

[Bundooman]

On 11/17/2017 at 8:30 AM, phantomfiddler said:

What an ungrateful bunch of a*s*h*l*s ! UK, with considerable assistance from America, saved their a*s*s from the loony with the moustache, and this is how they treat us ?

and this is how they TRY to treat us