Stalling Brexit talks ‘very dangerous’ for EU, says former minister

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said to be prepared to stall talks over U.K.’s exit bill.

LONDON — It would be “very dangerous” for the EU to stall Brexit talks over the U.K.’s divorce bill because time is tight and a no-deal scenario would mean Britain leaving without paying anything, blowing a huge hole in the bloc’s budget, according to a former U.K. Brexit minister.

David Jones, who served as Brexit Secretary David Davis’ deputy in the Department for Exiting the European Union until last month, told POLITICO that the time pressure on securing a deal was “more on them than it is upon us.”

The European Commission’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier is considering “stalling” the talks until the U.K. produces a counter-proposal of financial obligations owed to the bloc upon Brexit, according to EU diplomats.

However Jones, who as Brexit minister was privy to the U.K. government’s private preparations for the talks, said that the two-year deadline on the Article 50 process was set in stone, and that if no deal was reached, the U.K. could leave without being subject to EU treaties, “which of course include us making payments.”

“Bear in mind they are at the moment getting over £10 billion per annum net from the U.K., which they are going to be concerned about … It’s a significant sum and I know that particularly some of the smaller EU nations are concerned about this,” he said.

A no-deal scenario, which would see the U.K. leave the EU on World Trade Organization terms, would also, Jones said, have “much worse consequences” for the EU in terms of manufactured goods trade than it would for the U.K.

Speaking to POLITICO in Westminster as his former colleagues were engaged in the first full round of Brexit talks, Jones, who supported Leave in the 2016 referendum, backed Davis’s approach to the divorce bill. The U.K. has indicated it will not present a counter-proposal this week, instead using the talks to interrogate the EU’s position.

“I don’t think Barnier can stall the talks. I think it’s very dangerous if he does because we’ve got a very, very short timescale for all this and I think people tend to overlook that it’s as much in the EU’s interest as it is in the British interest to get this matter resolved,” he said.

“I wasn’t party to those negotiations so I can’t say what our stage of readiness is, but it does seem to me that if the EU is demanding a sum of money from Britain, it has to set out its methodology in great detail and support that methodology,” he said.

However, in comments that will boost hopes of a final deal on financial obligations, Jones indicated that he and other Brexit-supporting MPs were open to the idea that the U.K. should at least pay something on exit.

He said a House of Lords committee report from March that concluded the U.K. could legally walk away without paying anything, which he had previously called “extremely helpful,” had caused “a significant frisson” in European capitals.

But he did not rule out payment altogether. “In terms of strict legality it may well be that the House of Lords report conclusion is correct,” Jones said. “But I think that there are a wider range of considerations you have to bring into the equation, such as what kind of relationship do you want to have [with the EU] after we’ve completed our withdrawal.”

Concerns that Brexit-supporting MPs could block Theresa May’s Brexit deal if she accepts demands for a multibillion-pound exit bill have hung over Brexit talks.

Jones said he did not believe there were “many of my colleagues that are so dogmatic that they would say that nothing must be paid at all. I think everybody recognizes that there will have to be a continuing relationship.”

He also suggested that EU programs that the government should seek to remain a part of and contribute to, could include Horizon 2020 research funding and Erasmus.

Jones, a former secretary of state for Wales, was sacked from his role at DExEU after the June 8 general election, in a move that was initially seen as a signal the U.K. was softening its Brexit stance. However, another staunchly pro-Brexit MP, Steve Baker, has since been appointed.

An ally of Davis who backed the Brexit secretary’s unsuccessful leadership bid in 2005, Jones said that his former boss was doing a “very impressive” job.

“Working at close quarters with him I see an individual who is highly intelligent, extremely hard-working, contrary to what was said in the press,” he said, in a reference to comments by the former Vote Leave campaign director, Dominic Cummings, who branded Davis “thick as mince, lazy as a toad.”

“He is supported by an absolutely excellent team of officials, the best I’ve seen anywhere,” Jones added.

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