Theresa May was today warned by Britain’s own European commissioner that she cannot have trade talks until the Cabinet is “clear about what it wants” from Brexit.
Julian King, who holds the bloc’s security portfolio, told the Standard it was too early for talks to move on to discussions about a future relationship.
“We haven’t got there yet,” Mr King said. “I hope we’re going to get there quite soon, that we can start talking about the future relationship, the substance of the future relationship, in key areas like security. That will depend on the UK being reasonably clear about what it wants in different areas.
“It will also depend on the EU27 clearing their minds on some of these issues. But I do hope that we can move reasonably quickly to look at this.”
His remarks will disappoint Tory MPs hoping for quicker progress in laying the groundwork for the trade talks, which are due to start in March. On Monday Brexit Secretary David Davis said that “early in the new year” Britain would begin a “deep and open exploratory dialogue” to discover the right balance.
Last month EU leaders agreed to start talks with the UK on a transition deal in the new year but said they wanted more “clarity” from the UK government before they would discuss a trade accord. Michel Barner, the European Commission’s lead negotiator, said the bloc was prepared to offer the UK a free trade agreement along the lines of the EU’s existing deals with Canada, Japan or South Korea, with separate agreements on judicial co-operation, aviation and security.
Mr King said security should be part of the relationship regardless of a final trade deal. “Security is one of the areas, whatever else happens in the wider Brexit discussions, where there is a clear self-interest — a shared self-interest, of the EU27 on one side and the UK on the other — to find productive ways of continuing to work together as close as possible,” he said.
The EU and UK have both insisted that security co-operation should be “unconditional”, a point Mrs May was forced to clarify after her Article 50 letter last March, which appeared to make the issue a trade-off for a future trade deal.
“I take that to mean that they recognise that whatever else is going on in the Brexit negotiations, here’s an area where we should try and find ways of continuing very close co-operation,” Mr King said.
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The career diplomat, who took up the job in 2016, said security co-operation could be agreed “issue by issue” — for example, by allowing the UK to work with the EU’s police agency, Europol, or access its border control database, the Schengen Information System (SIS) — or in a more “horizontal way”.
The SIS, a repository of 75 million people and objects, was consulted more than 500 million times by UK authorities in 2016. Last summer, a government white paper said the EU and UK should “intensify” security co-operation, mentioning the SIS, Europol, the European arrest warrant and EU fingerprint and DNA systems.
