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Brussels is preparing to adopt tough no deal contingency plans for Brexit, ramping up pressure on the UK as negotiations enter a highly sensitive final phase.
The European Commission’s college is set to discuss on Tuesday when to publish a long-delayed paper outlining the EU’s emergency plans to deal with the UK leaving the union in March 2019 without an agreement.
The text, which the Financial Times first reported last month, lays out a minimalist approach to dealing with the worst effects of a hard-exit. Few contingency measures are envisaged for customs, road transport or trade in food, implying huge disruption at the border in the days after Brexit.
“Contingency measures will only be adopted where strictly necessary, that is in the limited number of cases where current rules do not offer satisfactory solutions to mitigate the most disruptive effects for the European Union of a withdrawal without an agreement”, says the document.
Brussels had originally planned to unveil the document last month but delayed publication for fear of upsetting negotiations. Although the text has been approved by the commission, the decision on when to publish will be taken by the college of commissioners who meet in Strasbourg on Tuesday, said officials.
Some EU diplomats worry that the uncompromising tone of the document could risk derailing talks at a crucial point, when British ministers have said a deal is within “touching distance”.
But governments most exposed to the economic impact from a no deal, such as Germany and the Netherlands, have pushed the EU to give more details about how it plans to co-ordinate the contingency measures.
“Without a withdrawal agreement, the speed of preparations will have to increase significantly” warns the commission text.
“The transition period foreseen by the draft Withdrawal Agreement would not be available. While the preparations for the United Kingdom becoming a third country in many respects would be the same, they would need to take place at a much faster pace.”
The document lays out how EU governments and companies should prepare for a no deal that would affect a range of sectors like airlines, haulage companies and financial services firms.
Airlines such as Ryanair and British Airways parent International Airline Group would not be given any extra transition time to meet the bloc’s regulatory requirement of 50 per cent EU-based ownership for a European operating licence, resulting in possible flight cancellations.
Road hauliers would also have their access rights limited to a system of permits that only covers 5 per cent of existing traffic.
Member states are stepping up their no deal Brexit planning with a series of meetings on sectoral issues such as financial services, customs procedures and how to protect the EU’s common budget over the next two months. Ambassadors from the EU27 will discuss preparedness at a meeting in Brussels tomorrow.
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