Michel Barnier has told MEPs there remain insufficient grounds for reopening formal negotiations over the Brexit withdrawal agreement, six months after Theresa May and the European commission closed them.
In a private briefing with the European parliament’s leaders, the EU’s chief negotiator said Boris Johnson’s officials had yet to offer any “legally credible and workable” proposals to replace the Northern Irish backstop on which the two negotiating teams could build.
In an earlier briefing with diplomats representing the EU27, a senior member of Barnier’s Brexit team had described the ideas so far put forward during technical talks between officials on both sides as “aspirational”.
“Another longish meeting without tangible progress on Wednesday,” said an EU diplomat, referring to the latest round of talks between the European commission and Johnson’s Brexit envoy, David Frost.
The last substantive Brexit negotiation took place in Strasbourg in March when the then prime minister and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, drafted an ill-fated adjunct to the withdrawal agreement emphasising the temporary nature of the Irish backstop. May’s deal was subsequently defeated in the Commons by the crushing margin of 149.
EU officials insisted that nearly two months after Johnson was made prime minister the gap between the two sides was still far too wide for any meaningful negotiation to take place with Downing Street and that British civil servants were still merely “talking about concepts”.
In the most recent talks between officials, Frost was said to have outlined ideas covering customs and manufactured goods in which Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland would be in separate customs and regulatory zones.
Sources said Johnson’s envoy had suggested an “enhanced market surveillance mechanism” for industrial goods involving tough penalties for those who seek to smuggle contraband over the border.
Frost had said the UK could commit to an open border in the withdrawal agreement but that the detail of how checks could be done away from the border would have to be decided during the stand-still transition period catered for in the withdrawal agreement.
The EU insists that there must be a legally operable plan for avoiding a hard border in any withdrawal agreement and that it will not accept a deal based on a promise.
While diplomats said there was growing belief that the UK was likely to table concrete plans in October, there was concern that the groundwork was not yet being done in order for the ideas to receive a positive reception in Brussels.
The UK government insists that it will not accept any backstop that leaves Northern Ireland in a separate customs territory and regulatory areas for goods other than agrifood.
But there remains some confidence that the UK might move in that direction in order to put a last-gasp deal before parliament and avoid a further Brexit extension.
One diplomat added that the UK “now seems better to recognise the unique situation on the island of Ireland”.