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EU Partners Warn Johnson against Brexit «Provocations»

EU Partners Warn Johnson against Brexit «Provocations»
folder_openEurope... access_time4 years ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Britain’s European partners Friday warned Boris Johnson that his hardline Brexit stance was putting the UK on a “collision course” with the EU and called on the new premier to avoid “provocations.”

Johnson is planning meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the next few weeks, officials said Friday, as the British premier insists he will renegotiate the UK’s divorce accord with the European Union.

Macron extended the invitation to Johnson in a call late Thursday from his official summer vacation residence in the south of France, where he is expected to stay for the next three weeks, an aide said.

But in a sign of wariness about Johnson’s anti-EU rhetoric, France’s Europe Minister Amelie de Montchalin urged Britain’s new leader to create a working relationship with his partners on the continent.

“From our side, we need to be responsible,” she told France 2 television. “That means being clear, predictable and it means on the other side that we need to create a working relationship, that there aren’t games, posturing, provocations.”

Macron, who has said he is happy to be considered the “bad guy” in the Brexit negotiations, is set to be a key figure during the tricky and potentially bad-tempered talks in the months ahead.

“Emmanuel Macron has had one of the firmest positions of European leaders in the negotiations,” said Vivien Pertusot, a research fellow at the IFRI foreign affairs think-tank and specialist on Brexit.

“Nothing is going to force his hand and he has no reason to soften his position,” he added.

Pertusot said that upcoming negotiations would be marked by “frankness” with attention on “which side is going to blink first.”

The timing of the meeting between Macron and Johnson was unclear. The British prime minister is due in France to attend the G-7 meeting of developed nations in Biarritz on Aug. 24-26.

Merkel had a telephone conversation with Johnson Friday and he has accepted her invitation to visit Berlin. “He said the only solution that would allow us to make progress on a deal is to abolish the backstop,” a spokesman for Johnson said of the call. The stance from Berlin was frank. “My message to the new British prime minister is clear: ‘Boris, the election campaign is over. Calm yourself down. We should be fair with each other,’” Germany’s Europe Minister Michael Roth, told ZDF television.

“What do not help are new provocations. Instead, dialogue - one must be able to expect that from the leader of a friendly nation, one that is still a member of the European Union.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was quoted as saying Friday that Johnson has deliberately set Britain on a “collision course” with the EU over Brexit negotiations.

“He seems to have made a deliberate decision to set Britain on a collision course with the European Union and with Ireland in relation to the Brexit negotiations,” Coveney was quoted by Irish state broadcaster RTE as saying in Belfast.

While Ireland would be very badly affected by a no-deal Brexit, the relative importance of Ireland in the negotiations up-ends almost a thousand years of history in which Dublin has traditionally had a much weaker hand than London.

In his maiden parliamentary speech as prime minister Thursday, Johnson promised to press ahead with plans to reopen the deal agreed with the EU.

“No deal will never be the EU’s choice, but we all have to be ready for all scenarios,” the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, wrote in an email sent to EU ambassadors Thursday.

“In this negotiation, if we want to force Boris Johnson’s hand, we need to prepare for no-deal and show that we’re not scared,” a European diplomat added, on condition of anonymity.

“He needs to know that we are ready for a no-deal.”

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