France's Le Drian blames Britain's 'attitude' for Brexit talks impasse

[alyx]

1 hour ago, herfiehandbag said:

Tell me, does a French minister do anything without "being alongside" a German?

Well, they learn from the best...French and German presidents 

Except when going to Lebanon ????

[welovesundaysatspace]

4 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Oh boo hoo. If the EU wasn't such a disaster Britain wouldn't want to leave it. Monsieur Le Drian should look closer to home.

I think you’re in a wrong thread. This is about a free trade agreement. Brexit is done already. 

[welovesundaysatspace]

 

4 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

The EU wants to retain some control over the UK. That's not how trade deals work.

Actually that’s exactly what a trade deal is. And that’s probably the issue here: that the UK wants to negotiate something that it hasn’t understood. 

 

[CG1 Blue]

4 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

The UK EU politicians were involved in making all those rules over the last decades. They should know all those rules in detail and they should know why they exists and why the EU won't make any exceptions from certain rules.

All that was very clear from the very beginning.

The EU is not discriminating. The EU follows the EU's countries interests.

As far as I see the proposed "strings" make a lot of sense. I.e. those level playing fields. The UK can't expect free access to the EU and then changing i.e. the employment or environmental rules in the UK to give them an advantage. 

The EU don't have the same strings attached when they negotiate trade deals with other countries. So they are discriminating against the UK. 

[CG1 Blue]

3 hours ago, Logosone said:

So we rebuild the entirety of Wales for you but you won't even share a haddock with us?

 

Well, well, well, now we see the true face of perfidious Albion.

Investment in Wales came from EU coffers, to which the UK were one of the biggest contributors. So they were just spending our money for us. How gracious of them...

[welovesundaysatspace]

20 minutes ago, CG1 Blue said:

The EU don't have the same strings attached when they negotiate trade deals with other countries. So they are discriminating against the UK. 

You should never run an own business if your idea is to give every business partner the same conditions in order to not be “discriminating” anyone.
 

And please don’t call your wine dealer and complain about being discriminated because you don’t get the same price as the customer who 500 instead 5 bottles. 
 

 

[CG1 Blue]

3 minutes ago, welovesundaysatspace said:

You should never run an own business if your idea is to give every business partner the same conditions in order to not be “discriminating” anyone.
 

And please don’t call your wine dealer and complain about being discriminated because you don’t get the same price as the customer who 500 instead 5 bottles. 
 

 

You've completely misunderstood the EU position if you think this is a fair analogy. The wine dealer is not simply asking for a higher price. He's asking to have some control over my business after he's sold me the wine. 

[welovesundaysatspace]

Just now, CG1 Blue said:

You've completely misunderstood the EU position if you think this is a fair analogy. The wine dealer is not simply asking for a higher price. He's asking to have some control over my business after he's sold me the wine. 

Yes. It’s called freedom of contract. And not everyone goes on an Internet forum to whine about it. Most people just accept it as a key pillar of free markets. 

[CG1 Blue]

19 minutes ago, welovesundaysatspace said:

Yes. It’s called freedom of contract. And not everyone goes on an Internet forum to whine about it. Most people just accept it as a key pillar of free markets. 

The EU are welcome to propose their restrictive terms, and the UK are free to reject them (and will reject them). I'm not whining about freedom of contract. I'm simply explaining why the terms are unacceptable. 

[candide]

4 minutes ago, CG1 Blue said:

The EU are welcome to propose their restrictive terms, and the UK are free to reject them (and will reject them). I'm not whining about freedom of contract. I'm simply explaining why the terms are unacceptable. 

Unacceptable, maybe. Unexpected, surely not!

[RayC]

1 hour ago, CG1 Blue said:

The EU don't have the same strings attached when they negotiate trade deals with other countries. So they are discriminating against the UK. 

What strings in particular? If you are referring to state aid, then that comes under 'Competition Policy', a substantial section in most trade agreements. As a minimum, parties are usually asked to define what are their policies re state aid. The UK refuses to do so.

 

Personally, I think that this refusal is simply because Johnson don't yet know himself. It is just another example of the incompetence of the UK government during the whole Brexit process.

[mrfill]

11 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Let's look how you and all the other people in Great Britain feel when the s$% hits the fan and the economy goes down, DOWN. Don't say nobody warned you.

 

Well, its gone down the pan with the marvellous covid response so the effect of brexit can be shifted to 'the virus' and everything will be fine... its always good to have a surprise scapegoat when you have a useless government.

[kamahele]

13 hours ago, RayC said:

So we are now officially in the 'Blame' phase of the game. Imo the UK is being "intransigent and unrealistic" with its demands re access to the single market. However, M.Diran might like to look in the mirror; Imo France and Spain's insistence on keeping the same deal re fishing rights in UK waters might also be viewed as being "intransigent and unrealistic".

The UK has been playing the blame game now for years. I guess its not nice to be on the receiving end for a change

[Loiner]

11 hours ago, candide said:

They will blame it on the EU, as usual.

Because it's the EU's fault, as usual. They are dealing with proper UK negotiators and Boris now, not Theresa and her bunch of appeasers anymore. The EU and Remainers can't cook up a trick deal and keep us under the EU rules by trickery this time. 

[transam]

The frogs aren't happy, not being able to splash about in UK waters any more.......

Croak, croak...????

 

 

[Opl]

19 minutes ago, kamahele said:

The UK has been playing the blame game now for years. I guess its not nice to be on the receiving end for a change

The UK has been intransigent for years, the EU accepted last minute demands as long as the UK was part of the EU.

Now that the UK has left, there is no reason to bend to UK's intransigence.

For a change? 

[Loiner]

6 hours ago, candide said:

Unacceptable, maybe. Unexpected, surely not!

Of course not unexpected. It couldn't be, after spending the last four years of Remainers trying to keep us tied to the EU; a WAG tying us to the the EU; and Barnier trying to negotiate us into the same rules & regs that were our reason for Brexit.

They all wanted to keep the status quo, while spinning a myth that we had left with the same EU conditions. Now that we're coming to Le Crunch they can see that Boris and Frost will win with No Deal. More Remainer and EU whining to come for the next few months. 

[herfiehandbag]

12 hours ago, Logosone said:

So we rebuild the entirety of Wales for you but you won't even share a haddock with us?

 

Well, well, well, now we see the true face of perfidious Albion.

I will raise your" perfidious Albion",and offer you "Herrenvolk"!

[Logosone]

8 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

Investment in Wales came from EU coffers, to which the UK were one of the biggest contributors. So they were just spending our money for us. How gracious of them...

The money for infrastructure projects in Wales indeed came from EU coffers to which the biggest contributor of course is the German taxpayer.

 

But that's fine, we'll get our haddock elsewhere, now Germans are no longer wanted and you have your infrastructure projects already built...

[welovesundaysatspace]

8 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

I'm not whining about freedom of contract. I'm simply explaining why the terms are unacceptable. 

I thought you were:

8 hours ago, CG1 Blue said:

After decades of UK contributions, the EU should not be discriminating against the UK by offering us a deal with strings attached.

But good if we agree that giving different business partners different conditions is not “discriminating” but just business 101. I wouldn’t expect the UK to give Zimbabwe the same conditions as the US either. 

[nauseus]

15 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

That is definitely a good summary.

If the little UK wants to play with the big EU then better accept the rules.

And lets not forget that the EU really tries to be nice to the UK. Any trade deal with the USA and China will be more difficult.

It probably helps to claim "let's take back control" to win an election. But that part is done and now it's time for realpolitik. Boris are you ready?

We're so lucky to get the real news from our TV insiders.

[nauseus]

14 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Let's look how you and all the other people in Great Britain feel when the s$% hits the fan and the economy goes down, DOWN. Don't say nobody warned you.

 

What a fearful thing to say!

[welovesundaysatspace]

1 hour ago, Loiner said:

Because it's the EU's fault, as usual.

It can’t be the EU’s fault because the EU is an external factor. You can only blame what’s under your control. By blaming an external factor you’re admitting that you did a bad job at planning and mitigating that external factor (or a bad decision in the first place).
 

Like saying it’s the customers’ fault that your bag of hot air isn’t selling the way you predicted. 

 

Or like saying 180,000 deaths is the Coronavirus’ fault. 
 

 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by welovesundaysatspace

[nauseus]

13 hours ago, alyx said:

Le Drian  (sorry I googled the Diran name to check who he was and I realised you were talking about Le Drian 555)

Is the anagram on purpose ? Drian and drain ?

Wee.

[nauseus]

9 hours ago, welovesundaysatspace said:

I think you’re in a wrong thread. This is about a free trade agreement. Brexit is done already. 

Er...the two seem to be rather interlinked...don't they?

[Srikcir]

14 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Oh boo hoo. If the EU wasn't such a disaster Britain wouldn't want to leave it. Monsieur Le Drian should look closer to home.

Disaster?

Didn't the EU and US just complete a trade deal? 

But of course the UK has nothing with either countries as yet with both the EU and US now with even stronger trade positions towards the UK. UK will not be the mouse that roared.

[nauseus]

8 hours ago, RayC said:

What strings in particular? If you are referring to state aid, then that comes under 'Competition Policy', a substantial section in most trade agreements. As a minimum, parties are usually asked to define what are their policies re state aid. The UK refuses to do so.

 

Personally, I think that this refusal is simply because Johnson don't yet know himself. It is just another example of the incompetence of the UK government during the whole Brexit process.

Maybe he doesn't know yet. But a reason for that may be that we weren't allowed to even talk to anyone else about FTAs before this year. Another EU demand that should have been given the finger.

[nauseus]

2 hours ago, mrfill said:

Well, its gone down the pan with the marvellous covid response so the effect of brexit can be shifted to 'the virus' and everything will be fine... its always good to have a surprise scapegoat when you have a useless government.

SO it were us wot dunnit after all then?

[welovesundaysatspace]

2 minutes ago, nauseus said:

Er...the two seem to be rather interlinked...don't they?

Brexit is a fact. Brexit is past. Trade policy decisions are being made forward-looking, not based on things that can’t be changed. 

[bert bloggs]

14 hours ago, herfiehandbag said:

Tell me, does a French minister do anything without "being alongside" a German?

alongside? dont you mean under?