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Brexit Negotiator: May’s Chequers Plan Incompatible with EU’s Guidelines

Brexit Negotiator: May’s Chequers Plan Incompatible with EU’s Guidelines
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Local Editor

Following a three-hour meeting with 27 EU national ministers in Brussels on Friday, European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier raised concerns about UK’s Prime Minister Theresa May’s blueprint for the Kingdom’s post-Brexit trade relations with the bloc.

May hoped that her White Paper would allow the country to maintain frictionless trade with the EU after Brexit is delivered, but Barnier questioned some of the proposals in the newly-published blueprint, including their incompatibility with the bloc’s basic principles.

“There are some elements [of the white paper] which do seem to contradict the guidelines of the EU council, the heads of government and state, namely the indivisibility of the four freedoms and the integrity of the single market. There is not a lot of justification for the EU running the risk of weakening the single market,” Barnier said.

The official further suggested that some “elements” from the much-debated White Paper “opened the way for a constructive discussion,” including plans for a free trade deal, a commitment to common standards and guarantees on fundamental rights.

At the same time, he stated that May’s proposal for customs would likely lead to more red tape, warning that “Brexit cannot be and will not be a justification for creating more bureaucracy.”

The Brexit negotiator then insisted that May should go with the EU’s “backstop” plan that would keep Northern Ireland in the single market for goods if the UK did not want to crash out with no deal.

"This requires a legally operative backstop, an all-weather insurance policy… All 27 member-states insist on this," he said, adding that the UK was invited to Brussels next week to negotiate on the issue of the Irish border.

His comments came shortly after May delivered a speech in Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast, saying she accepted that a hard Irish border was “almost inconceivable,” but once again rejected the bloc’s “backstop” solution as “unworkable.”

The UK is set to leave the EU in March 2019, but an October deadline to finalize the details of the country's divorce from the bloc and a transition period loom.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team

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