I'm not overly interested in that, it is about the only stick they have to play and, to their intense frustration, it's not playing the way they thought it would. Bit of reality coming home to roost on the EU side? Hadn't quite worked out that >50% of exports outside the EU means the UK can focus on other issues than trade and "take the hit" if we need to?
But, anyway. When you get back to the actual article and under the spin, some things stand out very clearly.
While there has been no official figure on the financial settlement, some estimates have placed the bill as 100bn euros. So far, the European Commission’s Brexit taskforce has not requested a certain figure – and Britain has not offered one.
So, had you been casting a weary eye over the press over the last 6 months you might just have noticed that the EU is demanding that the UK "settle their accounts", before leaving the EU.
Now I don't know about you, but I've never been in the habit of signing a blank cheque. Just what have the EU been doing for the last year with all those thousands of reams of paper they have been generating to be "totally prepared" for the UK leaving? They don't even have a figure for us to say yes or no to.
Reading a touch further, Barnier let's his frustration show a bit more.
Laying bare his frustration that the UK was not accepting its “accounts must be settled,” he added: “As soon as the UK is ready to clarify the nature of its commitments, we will be prepared to discuss this with the British negotiators.”
Now that same weary eye would have noticed that it was the EU demanding that the UK had "commitments", whereas the UK said it had none, however it might be willing to fund some things in order to facilitate a trade deal.
If I had spent a whole year telling the world that the UK had "commitments", with a team of 50 people documenting this "commitment", I would not be asking the UK to "clarify the nature of their commitment", I would be telling them what it was.
Reading the next paragraph, we learn that
“I know one has to compromise in negotiations but we are not there yet,” he added. “That’s the financial settlement, let’s be very clear. We want clarity on that because we need to be able to work more until we come to areas of compromise.”
Let me clarify that one. The EU, having spent a whole year telling the whole world that the UK has "commitments" and must settle the bill before we can talk trade, requires the UK to tell them what those commitments are before they are willing to negotiate on them.
Great. Let us take another situation where we create a commitment. Let's go to a restaurant and commit to eating the food. Once we have eaten the food, the owner comes with the bill and it says "tell me how much you owe and we'll talk about how much you pay".
Now, let me see.
I'll bid nothing, what do you bid and how do you justify that the meal you gave me was worth more???
The EU has a lesson to learn here. It has spent decades being told what people want from it and then saying "No that's not good enough". The only reason that the EU wants the UK to set a figure is so that they can immediately come back and hang another figure on the agreed commitment.
What is going on right now is that the UK are insisting that the EU:
List the items they want paid for
List the justification for that payment
Once the EU has done that, then the UK will subject that claim for legality, validity and the sniff test of larceny and then tell the EU whether it is acceptable or not. The UK will then tell the EU how much they owe the UK for our shares of the infrastructure they have built with our contributions. I expect that the EU are choking on that one given that the UK has been, for most of it's membership, the second largest net contributor so will have the second largest ownership, by value, of the EU infrastructure.
What is going on right now is the same thing that happens in all negotiations. If one party wants something, then the other party will analyse what they want and decide whether it is justified or not. Then the haggling can begin. The fact that the EU has not even stated what it wants, means that negotiations cannot begin.
The UK, on the other hand has stated very clearly what it wants. Controlled borders with the EU, no intervention from the ECJ, a free trade deal.
The EU wants open borders, ECJ judgements for EU citizens living in the UK and UK citizens living in the EU and they want us to pay some undisclosed exit penalty for an undisclosed number of years.
The talks are stalled? Really, why would I have ever guessed that?
Everyone thinks that David Davis is bluffing when he says that the UK will walk if the EU doesn't start being reasonable. Apparently nobody believes him.
Would you move your home to a new area then give the keys to the home, with a signed blank chequebook on the kitchen counter, to the old area manager????
This is what is being demanded. Then the press, like the Independent, make some big song and dance about how the UK is being unreasonable.
Time to ask the question just one more time. What _have_ the EU negotiators been doing for the last year. Everyone says they are far more organised than the UK negotiators, yet they can't come up with one single simple figure for the UK to agree, or not, as the case may be.
Fortunately our negotiators are far more able than the Greeks!
