German chancellor rejects Boris Johnson’s proposal to give Britain access to single market with limited immigration
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, has dismissed Boris Johnson’s proposal that Britain might enjoy access to the European single market and restrict immigration at the same time, telling German MPs the UK would enjoy no special favours.
In a speech to the Bundestag, Merkel said negotiations over Britain’s post-EU future would not be a “cherry-picking exercise”. To applause, she warned that the UK government should be under no illusions over the decisions that would be made.
“We will make sure that negotiations will not be carried out as a cherry-picking exercise. There must be and there will be a palpable difference between those countries who want to be members of the European family and those who don’t,” she said.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, Johnson, the former London mayor and leading Brexit campaigner, had suggested the UK might “take back democratic control of immigration” while continuing to enjoy free market access. Merkel’s comments – echoed on Tuesday by Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi – made it clear this would not happen.
“Whoever wants to leave this family cannot expect to shed all its responsibilities but keep the privileges,” Merkel said. “Those, for example, who want free access to the single market will in return have to respect European basic rights and freedoms … that’s true for Great Britain just as much as for the others.”
Merkel said the UK could enjoy access to the single market only if it accepted the “four basic European freedoms – that of people, goods, services and capital”.
She added: “Norway, for instance, is not a member of the European Union but has access to the single market because it accepts open migration from the European Union.”
The chancellor’s comments underlined the stark choices facing David Cameron’s successor as prime minister as an EU summit was beginning in Brussels a few hours after Merkel’s address.
The prime minister arrived in Brussels on Tuesday lunchtime for what was expected to be his final set-piece EU summit before he steps down promising that that UK would remain cordial in the exit talks.
Cameron said he would be “explaining that Britain will be leaving the European Union but I want that process to be as constructive as possible and I hope the outcome can be as constructive as possible, because of course while we’re leaving the European Union, we mustn’t be turning our backs on Europe”.
He added: “These countries are our neighbours, our friends, our allies, our partners and I very much hope we’ll seek the closest possible relationship in terms of trade and cooperation and security, because that is good for us and that is good for them. And that’s the spirit in which the discussions I think will be held today.”
The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, urged the UK to clarify its position on Brexit.
In an emotional address to the European parliament, Juncker said there must be no secret negotiations on Brexit. He added that the UK remained friends but said the British government needed to state its position swiftly to avoid uncertainty.
“I would like our British friends to tell us what they want so we can get on with it,” Juncker said, expressing surprise at the foot-dragging thus far from the British side.
There were surreal scenes inside the European parliament when a victorious Nigel Farage appeared in the chamber. Juncker told the Ukip leader: “That’s the last time you are applauding here. And to some extent I’m really surprised that you are here. You were fighting for the exit. The British people voted in favour of the exit; why are you here?”.
Juncker’s comments came as Cameron arrived in Brussels for the first time since Thursday’s vote and will add to the pressure on Britain to start divorce proceedings soon. Speaking in Brussels, France’s president, François Hollande, said there was “no time to lose” and urged Britain to begin talks on an exit as soon as possible.
The leaders of Germany, France and Italy have ruled out any chance of informal negotiations on the UK’s future relationship with the bloc until it gives formal notification of its intention to leave, with a consensus emerging that this should happen in the autumn.
Other politicians have insisted that Britain would receive a worse deal outside the EU. The Dutch finance minister, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the chair of the eurozone finance ministers’ council, said Farage was “living in his own world” if he thought the UK would now get an improved trade agreement.
Dijsselbloem added: “He [Farage] thinks Britain is still a world-spanning empire and can dictate everything, and it’s not going to happen like that.”
The prime minister has insisted it is Britain’s “sovereign decision” to decide when to trigger article 50, the mechanism by which a member state leaves the union, and Brexit leaders have said they want informal talks on the shape of a deal before locking Britain into the tight two-year extrication process. MEPs said on Tuesday that “no notification” meant “no negotiation”.
Cameron, who resigned after the vote last week, is expected to repeat that initiating the withdrawal process must be a job for his successor, who is likely to be appointed by early September. Most in Brussels accept that Britain cannot be expected to make a move before the political dust has settled on the referendum.
Arriving in Brussels, Cameron shook hands with Juncker and met the EU president, Donald Tusk. He is due to take part in long-planned debates on migration, European security and the single market; the rest of the EU is determined to show it is business as usual.
He will then “explain Britain’s situation” at a dinner and return home, not having been invited to Wednesday’s talks. Cameron has not yet indicated what he intends to do about the UK presidency of the EU, still in principle scheduled to take place in the second half of 2017.
While some member states – particularly Poland, which considers Britain one of its greatest EU allies – have wondered whether the UK might not be persuaded to stay, most want Brexit to get under way quickly to contain the risk of Eurosceptic contagion, limit the economic instability and allow the EU to move forward with new initiatives on security, growth and jobs.
The EU has no legal means to force Britain to launch the exit process and most European governments as well as Brussels officials believe the UK should be given until the end of the year at the latest to push the button – meaning it would no longer be an EU member by the time of the European parliamentary elections and appointment of a new European commission in 2019.
EU officials have said it would be “unrealistic” to expect Cameron to initiate the exit process at a time when Britain was in “a very significant political crisis, not only of the leadership of the ruling party … but a crisis that goes much deeper”.
(TheGuardian US)
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