EU won't be able to deal with the CONSEQUENCES: Professor RIPS Barnier's no deal threat
A LEADING professor has destroyed Michel Barnier’s threat to the UK, insisting no bespoke trade deal will be offered in Brexit negotiations.
Professor Michael Dougan, an expert in EU law, said they won’t “be able to deal with the consequences” of a no-deal Brexit.
Mr Barnier, the European Commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, claimed “parallel” trade talks will probably start in March after the UK was deemed to have made “sufficient progress” in the first stage of talks.
In the Prospect Magazine interview, the Frenchman added there would be “no way” the UK would reach a bespoke divorce arrangement with the European Union.
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They won’t be in a position to deal with the consequences themselves anyway
Speaking to the House of Common’s Brexit Select Committee, Professor Dougan, professor of European law at the University of Liverpool said a deal becomes more likely the closer we move to the final Brexit date.
He said: “Everyone wants a deal, apart from some at the fringes.
“One of the difficulties as well is that more than time goes on and the closer we get to an actual withdrawal date, having banked all of this on sorting these problems out amicably by agreement through multilateral processes, the less likely is people can was away.
“They won’t be in a position to deal with the consequences themselves anyway, not in a way that won’t cause serious disruption to their own citizens and businesses.”
Mr Barnier has since backtracked on his tough stance under reported pressure from EU member states and agreed the UK will be offered a “tailor-made” trade deal.
The chief negotiator’s conciliatory remarks came after his deputy, Belgian official Stefaan De Rynck, told an event in London earlier this week that Britain’s new relationship would be bespoke.
Mr Barnier: “Logically for the economic side of our partnership we'll be working on the basis of an FTA along the same lines as what we negotiated and signed recently with Canada, also South Korea, and Japan more recently.
“There are of course differences between these different models because each of these cooperation models each of these trade models is, of course, tailor-made and specific for the country with which we´re signing these agreements.
“So there are differences, but it´s the same approach the same logic underpinning these agreements and that will be the situation with the UK in the light of what they have said their position is themselves.”
