Michel BARNIER, Chief Negotiator of the Task force for the Application of Article 50 with the UK, closes the European Parliament of Enterprises 2018, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Brussels

statement

meeting

BARNIER, Michel (FR)

economic growth (T)

European Parliament of Enterprises 2018 - Closing session: extracts from the statement by Michel BARNIER, Chief Negotiator of the Task force for the Application of Article 50 with the UK

Atmosphere ahead the meeting, arrival, handshake.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, Chief Negotiator of the Task force for the Application of Article 50 with the UK , We must agree on the governance of the withdraw agreement and on a very key issue for the agriculture economy the geographical indications that are currently protected in the 28 EU member states.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, We need to agree on how to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland for many reasons for political human and economic reasons.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, Customs and V.A.T. checks and compliance checks with our standards to protect our consumers our economic traders and to protect your businesses.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, The only visible systematic checks between Northern Ireland the rest of the UK would involve scanning the barcodes on the lorries or containers. For regulatory checks on industrial goods, for instance, this could be carried out by market surveillance authorities. Again these would not need to happen at the border, but directly in the market or at the premises of companies in Northern Ireland.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, The health and fitoo sanitary checks for life animals and products of anymore origin use. EU rules, our rules are very clear. Such checks must happen at the border because of food safety and animal health reasons.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, Both the EU and the UK exclude having a physical border on the island of Ireland, therefore what we'll arrive into Northern Ireland will also be arriving in our single market. There will be administrative procedures that do not exist today for goods travelling to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

SOUNDBITE (English), Michel BARNIER, A veterinary agreement between EU and UK would mean less frequent inspections of live animals. And we are still open, we are still open to the idea of having a customs union with the UK. Such a customs union would eliminate an important part of custom checks.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, Beyond this Free Trade Area without tariffs and quotas, we have two points of divergence with the British proposals because these two points are clearly contradictory with the foundations of our single market, your market. Firstly, in customs matters, the United Kingdom would like to maintain the autonomy of a trade policy to negotiate its own agreements with the Americans, the Chinese and others, while remaining in our customs area. Thus they could charge lower rates than ours at the entrance to the external borders while remaining in a single property market with us. This, from our point of view, could lead to a risk of diversion of trade flows to the detriment of our companies. The United Kingdom would like to apply its own external tariffs while also collecting European tariffs for us. This would result in a loss of control for us of our collection of tax revenues whether it is tariffs for the European budget or VAT revenues for the Member States.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, The 'no deal' is not, never was, our scenario even though our responsibility is to be prepared for all options. Here I would like to be sincere with you, even in the case of an agreement - and I work for an agreement with my team - there will be adaptations for many of your companies because of the British choice. It can not be 'business as usual'. And to help your companies cope with these adaptations, the European Commission, the Secretariat General have published more than 70 leaflets that are available to you and which concern all sectors involved by Brexit.

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel BARNIER, I think BREXIT has no added value, none. It's a negative negotiation. It's a 'lose-lose game' ! And its outcome is important, beyond our relationship with the UK, for the future of all of Europe. I'm convinced.