Yahoo – AFP,
Damon WAKE, December 8, 2017
 |
| British Prime Minister Theresa May and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker met as the UK and EU reached a breakthrough on Brexit talks (AFP Photo/EMMANUEL DUNAND) |
Brussels
(AFP) - Britain and the European Union reached a historic deal on Brexit
divorce terms on Friday, but Brussels swiftly warned that even harder talks lie
ahead on a future relationship after the split.
British
Prime Minister Theresa May rushed to Brussels for early morning talks with
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to clinch the breakthrough.
The
European Commission announced that it judged "sufficient progress"
had been made after Britain agreed to keep the Irish border open, pay a 40-45
billion-euro divorce bill and protect expats' rights.
But EU
President Donald Tusk -- who will recommend to leaders at a summit next week to
open trade and transition talks -- warned that the toughest task was to come.
"Let
us remember that the most difficult challenge is still ahead. We all know that
breaking up is hard but breaking up and building a new relation is much
harder," Tusk said.
Negotiators
worked through the night to seal an agreement after the EU set a deadline of
Sunday.
May said
the key part of the agreement was to ensure there would be no return of
checkpoints on the frontier between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU
member Ireland after March 29, 2019, the date Britain is to leave the bloc.
"In
Northern Ireland we will guarantee there will be no hard border," she told
a press conference with Juncker.
 |
The rights
of EU citizens in Britain will be "enshrined in UK law and enforced
by
British courts", May said (AFP Photo/Gillian HANDYSIDE)
|
Northern
Ireland 'alignment'
Northern
Irish unionists who prop up May's minority Conservative government scuppered a
possible deal on Monday with their fierce opposition to wording they felt would
divide the North from the rest of the UK.
The deal
commits both sides to respect the 1998 Good Friday agreement, which ended
decades of violence between nationalists who want a united Ireland and Northern
Ireland unionists loyal to Britain.
Under the
agreement, London will try to find a way to avoid a hard border on the island
of Ireland "through the overall EU-UK relationship" but if this
cannot be achieved, Britain will keep "full alignment" with the EU
single market and customs union rules that are crucial to the Good Friday
Agreement.
Irish Prime
Minister Leo Varadkar welcomed the deal, saying his government had
"achieved all that we set out to achieve".
On its
divorce bill, previously the most contentious issue, Downing Street said Britain
had agreed to pay a settlement of between 35 billion and 39 billion pounds (40
billion to 45 billion euros).
The welfare
and social rights of some 3.7 million European citizens living in the UK after
Brexit are protected in the deal -- and for eight years after Brexit it gives
them recourse to the EU's top court if they feel they are being treated
unfairly.
However,
the3million, an advocacy group for expats living in Britain, said the deal
still leaves people in uncertainty.
The
breakthrough was given a cautious welcome around Europe, with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel's spokesman calling it a "step forward" and French
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian saying "common sense" had
prevailed.
UK business
leaders breathed a sigh of relief, with Josh Hardie, deputy director general of
the CBI business lobby saying it opened the door to an accord on trade, the
"true prize".
 |
There will
be no hard border with Ireland, Britain and the EU have agreed
(AFP
Photo/Gillian HANDYSIDE)
|
European
markets were up and the pound briefly topped $1.35 on the news, though analysts
said with difficult trade talks still to come, it was too early to start
popping corks.
Tusk warned
that with October 2018 set as a deadline for settling a final withdrawal
agreement, there was "de facto less than a year" for trade talks --
and it has taken a year and a half since Britain's June 2016 Brexit referendum
just to reach Friday's accord.
Senior
members of the European Parliament -- which will have to give its approval of
the final agreement -- said they were happy with Friday's accord and would vote
on it on Wednesday.
Former
Polish premier Tusk, who deals with EU leaders, released nine draft guidelines
on future relations so member states could approve them for next week's summit.
He said he
would propose the "immediate" opening of talks on a transition
period, which Britain has estimated at around two years, but warned Britain
would have to "respect the whole of EU law, including new law" during
that period -- and would have no say in its drafting.
That -- and
the continued influence of the European Court of Justice -- is set to infuriate
ardent Brexit supporters, including some in May's Conservative party, who have
argued for Britain to walk away from the talks with no deal rather than
compromise on sovereignty and the financial bill.
Canada
model for trade
Tusk called
for more clarity from Britain on what kind of trade relationship it wants, but
the bloc's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said London had left little
room for manoeuvre.
He said
Britain's insistence on leaving the single market and customs union gave the EU
no choice but to work on a post-Brexit free trade agreement modelled on the
bloc's deal with Canada.
"It's
not us, it's our British friends who are giving these red lines which close
certain doors," Barnier said.
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