EU officials want a termination clause that would require the withdrawing party to meet the costs of reintroducing border checks and related infrastructure…reports Asian Lite News
The European Union is seeking firm guarantees that Britain would compensate the bloc if a future UK government were to abandon the post-Brexit “reset” deal currently being negotiated by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
According to a report by the The Guardian, EU officials want a termination clause that would require the withdrawing party to meet the costs of reintroducing border checks and related infrastructure. The demand revives memories of the fraught Brexit divorce, after which the EU created a €5.4bn (£4.7bn) adjustment reserve to help member states cope with disruption following the UK’s exit in 2020.
The Guardian reports that a draft agreement on agricultural trade — designed to ease post-Brexit checks on food and farm products — includes provisions obliging any side that pulls out to pay for restoring border controls. EU diplomats have dubbed the provision the “Farage clause”, amid concerns that a future government led by Nigel Farage could scrap a UK-EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) agreement.
UK sources, however, have played down the significance of the clause, insisting it is standard practice in international treaties and applies equally to both sides. A Labour source said exit provisions were routine legal safeguards and dismissed suggestions they represented a democratic outrage.
Formal negotiations on the SPS deal are expected to begin this month but could take several months, as it is among the most complex elements of the broader reset package, which also includes a potential return to the Erasmus student exchange scheme. Talks on carbon emissions linked to exports to the EU have also proved difficult, with hopes of an early deal fading.
Anand Menon, director of UK in a Changing Europe, said the EU was unsurprisingly taking a tough line, believing Britain needs the agreements more than the bloc does. He warned this approach would likely see Brussels seek maximum concessions.
When Brexit costs were first calculated, the EU’s €5.4bn reserve allocated hundreds of millions of euros to countries such as Ireland and the Netherlands to rebuild customs, veterinary and border systems dismantled with the creation of the single market in 1993.
