Irish PM says EU has upper hand in Brexit trade talks with UK

[snoop1130]

Irish PM says EU has upper hand in Brexit trade talks with UK

 

Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar greets European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier at Government Buildings in Dublin, Ireland January 27, 2020. REUTERS/Lorraine O'Sullivan

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the European Union will have the upper hand in post-Brexit trade talks with the United Kingdom and questioned Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s timetable of striking a deal by the end of the year, the BBC reported.

 

Varadkar, in an interview with the BBC, compared the two sides to soccer teams and suggested that the EU would have the “stronger team” due to its larger population and market.

 

“The European Union is a union of 27 member states. The UK is only one country. And we have a population and a market of 450 million people,” he told the BBC.

 

When asked about Johnson’s aim of getting a deal by the end of 2020, he said: “It will be difficult to do this”.

 

To get a trade deal, the United Kingdom would have to give legal assurances that it would not undercut the EU, Varadkar said.

 

The Irish PM added that both sides would have to agree to a “common set of minimum standards” that would have to be “high standards”.

 

He said he had feared last year that the United Kingdom would leave the EU without a deal but that a meeting he had with Johnson in October had been a breakthrough.

 

Varadkar, though, cautioned that there will be have to be some checks on goods going from Britain into Northern Ireland, despite Johnson’s repeated insistence that there will not have to be.

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-01-27

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[TheDark]

8 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

Varadkar, in an interview with the BBC, compared the two sides to soccer teams and suggested that the EU would have the “stronger team” due to its larger population and market.

 

“The European Union is a union of 27 member states. The UK is only one country. And we have a population and a market of 450 million people,” he told the BBC.

Size gives EU quite a good advantage when it comes to making a trade deal. Still let's not forget that UK buys more products from the EU, than EU exports to UK. Services however is a whole different ballgame. 

 

Also EU can continue easy trading using it's existing trade deals around the globe, meanwhile UK has to create almost everything from the scratch. 

 

Most likely result is that this will be clean break Brexit. Few common sense deals, basic aviation etc., but no trade or service deals.

[welovesundaysatspace]

 

1 hour ago, TheDark said:

Still let's not forget that UK buys more products from the EU, than EU exports to UK.

I’m still waiting for the first one who can actually explain why that is any relevant to the question of who has the more negotiating power in this trade deal. Zero relevant. 

 

[samran]

2 hours ago, TheDark said:

Still let's not forget that UK buys more products from the EU, than EU exports to UK. 

Probably me being pedantic, but surely the UK buys exactly the same amount of goods that the EU exports to the UK? 
 

Anyway, the usual rule brittania types will be along shortly to tell us how a market of 60 odd million worth a couple of % of global GDP out negotiates a market of 400m with close to 20% of global GDP.

 

Edited January 27, 2020 by samran

[TheDark]

1 minute ago, samran said:

Probably me being pedantic, but surely the UK buys exactly the same amount of goods that the EU exports to the UK? 

Oh yes. My mistake. I can't edit that post. I hope people still understand my brainfart. 

[from the home of CC]

yes, I would portray the Euros as the wife in this divorce..   oh oh ...

[tgw]

there is no such thing as an "upper hand" in these talks.

UK wants to quit - fine - if it quits hard ("no deal"), then the consequences are way worse for the UK than the EU.

what is it with the Brits' obsession about always "getting a good deal" where they must have the feeling that they somehow screwed the other party? this is what started this whole disaster in the first place.

[vogie]

10 minutes ago, tgw said:

there is no such thing as an "upper hand" in these talks.

UK wants to quit - fine - if it quits hard ("no deal"), then the consequences are way worse for the UK than the EU.

what is it with the Brits' obsession about always "getting a good deal" where they must have the feeling that they somehow screwed the other party? this is what started this whole disaster in the first place.

Whilst the EU may look at the UK leaving the EU as a disaster, the UK does not look at it that way. Cameron tried his best to get some concessions from the EU, they laughed at him, I'd like to bet that they are not laughing now. You make your bed, you lie in it. Boris is not May!

[tgw]

16 minutes ago, vogie said:

Whilst the EU may look at the UK leaving the EU as a disaster, the UK does not look at it that way. Cameron tried his best to get some concessions from the EU, they laughed at him, I'd like to bet that they are not laughing now. You make your bed, you lie in it. Boris is not May!

You misunderstand - the disaster is this whole process.

started with electoral fraud remote controlled from Russia, endless talks, major government crisis, etc.

https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfzoom/videos/zdfzoom-democracy-under-attack-102.html

Brexit looks to me like a successful Russian political destabilization operation.

[samran]

37 minutes ago, vogie said:

Whilst the EU may look at the UK leaving the EU as a disaster, the UK does not look at it that way. Cameron tried his best to get some concessions from the EU, they laughed at him, I'd like to bet that they are not laughing now. You make your bed, you lie in it. Boris is not May!

Monty Pythons black knight comes to mind...

[Loiner]

Varadkar may have kissed something but it certainly wasn’t the Blarney Stone. Total BS with which he would have trouble convincing himself. 
He’s the pythonesque one, more parrot selling shopkeeper than Black Knight. His visions of keeping EU shackles on the UK are dead, deceased demised etc

[JAG]

5 hours ago, Loiner said:

Varadkar may have kissed something but it certainly wasn’t the Blarney Stone. Total BS with which he would have trouble convincing himself. 
He’s the pythonesque one, more parrot selling shopkeeper than Black Knight. His visions of keeping EU shackles on the UK are dead, deceased demised etc

He could do with a word with his tailor as well - that suits looks like it was borrowed from Norman Wisdom!

[Christie Paul]

The EU is tanking - capital flows to the US are enormous - restrictive policies have created recession - ECB a zombie holding 40% of debt and 12 trillion in outstanding negative interest rate bonds - what a mess. The UK has climbed out of what could be described as a burning dumpster.

[vogie]

9 hours ago, samran said:

Monty Pythons black knight comes to mind...

Varadkar is the EUs tool and his days are numbered.

[Rookiescot]

Johnson and his mates care about one thing.

The continued passporting of financial services from the City of London into Europe.

 

Everything else, including the NHS is expendable.

The fishermen are going to find out soon just how duplicitous the leave campaign really was. But hell mend them. They were well warned.  

[sawadee1947]

"the European Union will have the upper hand in post-Brexit trade talks with the United Kingdom."

 

How true. Common sense. 

[Laughing Gravy]

5 hours ago, vogie said:

Varadkar is the EUs tool and his days are numbered.

They are numbered. Is that number 76 by any chance. It's the way I tell them

Edited January 28, 2020 by Laughing Gravy

[Laughing Gravy]

The EU just don't learn and you get some posters saying we should have tried to work with them.

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/eu-demands-its-judges-keep-control-after-brexit-wkk9fcjfz

 

I am looking forward to the next brave country who has the guts to stop being dominated by a German led dictatorship.

 

Will it be Hungary, Italy or Holland.

[evadgib]

55 minutes ago, Laughing Gravy said:

They are numbered. Is that number 76 by any chance. It's the way I tell them

49's had his head down for a while ????

[placnx]

6 hours ago, Christie Paul said:

The EU is tanking - capital flows to the US are enormous - restrictive policies have created recession - ECB a zombie holding 40% of debt and 12 trillion in outstanding negative interest rate bonds - what a mess. The UK has climbed out of what could be described as a burning dumpster.

The contradictions of the Euro functioning in seriously different economies, e.g. Greece/southern tier and Germany, have yet to be dealt with. Germany seems incapable of recognizing its duty to support less fortunate members, so now they are all in an apparently inescapable deflation.

[Darkside Gray]

Whathe needs to remember is that RI borders the Uk

We are leaving. Its his problem not the uk's

[puipuitom]

18 hours ago, vogie said:

Whilst the EU may look at the UK leaving the EU as a disaster, the UK does not look at it that way. Cameron tried his best to get some concessions from the EU, they laughed at him, I'd like to bet that they are not laughing now. You make your bed, you lie in it. Boris is not May!

Time to read recent history see "what EU all gave to Cameron" in Google:

EU reform deal: What Cameron wanted and what he got - BBC ...

 

1.  

Vertaal deze pagina

20 feb. 2016 - David Cameron claims his EU reform deal will give the UK "special ... benefits at all", adding that "if jobseekers have not found a job within six ...

www.telegraph.co.uk › News

 

EU deal: What David Cameron asked for... and what he ...

 

1.  

Vertaal deze pagina

14 jun. 2016 - In his January 2013 Bloomberg Speech, David Cameron announced he ... can't have imposed on it changes the eurozone want to make without ... be discussed in the European Council, which means all 28 member states.

[melvinmelvin]

 

dunno if the snippet below is true or not

 

but you would surely need the upperhand to push this one;

 

https://indiatimespost.com/brexit-live-barnier-demands-eu-judges-keep-control-after-brexit-boris-told-to-walk-away/

 

 

[melvinmelvin]

 

ensuring free access to UK fishing waters for the upcoming 25 years

would also require a hand (or two) out of the ordinary,

 

maybe upper (dunno) and very long fingers

 

[lungbing]

It's a long spoon the PM needs to sup with them.

[Baerboxer]

On 1/27/2020 at 9:23 PM, samran said:

Probably me being pedantic, but surely the UK buys exactly the same amount of goods that the EU exports to the UK? 
 

Anyway, the usual rule brittania types will be along shortly to tell us how a market of 60 odd million worth a couple of % of global GDP out negotiates a market of 400m with close to 20% of global GDP.

 

 

Those with a larger spend i.e. buying power can often have more power in a negotiation. However, those selling, if they are selling something unique or have something the buyer desperately needs. 

 

The EU are also conscious of the reactions of other major trading blocs / nations. They have deals with Switzerland and Norway. They won't want any potential UK deal to be significantly better or worse. That would open them up to accusations of favoritism or spite. Neither sits well with a bloc trying to lecture the world on good neo-liberal behavior.

 

There has also been some comment in the EU about concerns on jobs there too in a no deal Brexit.

 

The new EU commission president and her team need to grab control of this. And perhaps review if Barnier is the best choice or if they continue with Macron's puppet. Another potential rift between France and Germany.

 

Johnson's 1 year is a target, put down specifically to stop the EU prevaricating and deliberately dragging their feet. Which Barnier is already indicating that's what they'll do.

 

The Irish PM isn't a strong player in this in reality.

[Baerboxer]

17 hours ago, melvinmelvin said:

 

dunno if the snippet below is true or not

 

but you would surely need the upperhand to push this one;

 

https://indiatimespost.com/brexit-live-barnier-demands-eu-judges-keep-control-after-brexit-boris-told-to-walk-away/

 

 

 

This is exactly why Barnier has to be replaced with a chief negotiator representing the EU rather than one being instructed by the French President.

 

No one in their right mind would accept the ECJ, a highly political court, of being an unbiased arbiter. They never have been.

 

France regularly breaks the rules on state aid, Barnier knows that very well.

 

Sorry but Brexit means the UK won't be dictated to by the EU and certainly not by France. Negotiate a fair settlement or not. But don't expect to dictate.