Reuters, Berlin :
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he fears Britain will divide the European Union’s 27 remaining members by making different promises to each country during its Brexit negotiations.
“The other EU 27 don’t know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this,” Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio. “They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front.”
Britain will by the end of March trigger formal divorce talks with the EU, a major test for the bloc which is struggling to have a grip on other challenges like keeping Greece in the euro zone, the refugee crisis and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.
To add to all of that, the Netherlands, France and Germany are holding general elections this year, in which populist anti-EU parties are expected to make strong showings.
“Now everyone is saying in relation to Trump and Brexit: ‘Now is Europe’s big chance. Now is the time to close ranks and march together,'” Juncker said in the radio interview which will be aired on Sunday.
“I wish it will be like this, but will it happen? I have some doubt. Because the Brits will manage without big effort to divide the remaining 27 member states.”
His warning echoed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in Bratislava last year aimed at finding a way forward after Britain’s vote to leave, that the bloc is in a critical situation.
Juncker said one area where the remaining 27 could improve cooperation was defence. Britain and France are the only EU countries with nuclear arsenals.
Juncker, who will host U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Brussels next weekend, said a protectionist trade policy by the Trump administration would be an opportunity for the EU to forge new trade alliances.
“It would be a change that we have to use,” Juncker said. “And we should not allow the Brits to pursue trade deals now with others because they are not allowed to do so.”
He added that as long as Britain was in the bloc, the European Commission was in charge of negotiating trade deals.
Meanwhile, Britain is likely to face some economic disruption and worse trading terms if it loses access to the European single market when it leaves the EU in 2019, the bloc’s financial services chief said on Friday.
Valdis Dombrovskis, who is also vice president of the European Commission, said “lots of time and energy” would be spent on negotiating new trading terms if British Prime Minister Theresa May pressed ahead with a so-called “hard Brexit” plan to leave the single market.
“If the UK is outside the internal market, we need to find a workable solution,” Dombrovskis said at a Bloomberg event in London.
May is due to formally trigger divorce talks with the EU next month, lasting two years.
In the meantime, it was important Britain remained a fully committed EU member to approve financial rules such as giving regulators powers to close failing clearing houses speedily to avoid contagion, Dombrovskis said.
The EU has launched a project to create a capital markets union or CMU to improve the ability of markets to raise funds for the economy, but Brexit will change its “dynamics”, he said.
There was a need in upcoming divorce talks to see how market links could be preserved to make CMU work in a wider context and not just inside an EU of 27 countries without Britain, he added.
Some EU policymakers want clearing of euro denominated derivatives contracts to move from London to the continent after Brexit, potentially taking thousands of jobs from Britain.
The European Central Bank’s first attempt at shifting euro clearing to the euro zone was shot down by the bloc’s top court.
“We know the European Central Bank has now put the issue back on the table. We have said that from the Commission’s side that we are ready to assess this situation together with the ECB and find an appropriate way forward,” Dombrovskis said.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he fears Britain will divide the European Union’s 27 remaining members by making different promises to each country during its Brexit negotiations.
“The other EU 27 don’t know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this,” Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio. “They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front.”
Britain will by the end of March trigger formal divorce talks with the EU, a major test for the bloc which is struggling to have a grip on other challenges like keeping Greece in the euro zone, the refugee crisis and the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president.
To add to all of that, the Netherlands, France and Germany are holding general elections this year, in which populist anti-EU parties are expected to make strong showings.
“Now everyone is saying in relation to Trump and Brexit: ‘Now is Europe’s big chance. Now is the time to close ranks and march together,'” Juncker said in the radio interview which will be aired on Sunday.
“I wish it will be like this, but will it happen? I have some doubt. Because the Brits will manage without big effort to divide the remaining 27 member states.”
His warning echoed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in Bratislava last year aimed at finding a way forward after Britain’s vote to leave, that the bloc is in a critical situation.
Juncker said one area where the remaining 27 could improve cooperation was defence. Britain and France are the only EU countries with nuclear arsenals.
Juncker, who will host U.S. Vice President Mike Pence in Brussels next weekend, said a protectionist trade policy by the Trump administration would be an opportunity for the EU to forge new trade alliances.
“It would be a change that we have to use,” Juncker said. “And we should not allow the Brits to pursue trade deals now with others because they are not allowed to do so.”
He added that as long as Britain was in the bloc, the European Commission was in charge of negotiating trade deals.
Meanwhile, Britain is likely to face some economic disruption and worse trading terms if it loses access to the European single market when it leaves the EU in 2019, the bloc’s financial services chief said on Friday.
Valdis Dombrovskis, who is also vice president of the European Commission, said “lots of time and energy” would be spent on negotiating new trading terms if British Prime Minister Theresa May pressed ahead with a so-called “hard Brexit” plan to leave the single market.
“If the UK is outside the internal market, we need to find a workable solution,” Dombrovskis said at a Bloomberg event in London.
May is due to formally trigger divorce talks with the EU next month, lasting two years.
In the meantime, it was important Britain remained a fully committed EU member to approve financial rules such as giving regulators powers to close failing clearing houses speedily to avoid contagion, Dombrovskis said.
The EU has launched a project to create a capital markets union or CMU to improve the ability of markets to raise funds for the economy, but Brexit will change its “dynamics”, he said.
There was a need in upcoming divorce talks to see how market links could be preserved to make CMU work in a wider context and not just inside an EU of 27 countries without Britain, he added.
Some EU policymakers want clearing of euro denominated derivatives contracts to move from London to the continent after Brexit, potentially taking thousands of jobs from Britain.
The European Central Bank’s first attempt at shifting euro clearing to the euro zone was shot down by the bloc’s top court.
“We know the European Central Bank has now put the issue back on the table. We have said that from the Commission’s side that we are ready to assess this situation together with the ECB and find an appropriate way forward,” Dombrovskis said.
