I want to say yes, but cutting their noses off to spite their face is something they've excelled at so far.
UK set to trigger Brexit on March 29
- Thread starter chadskin
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Remember negotiations have not even started and we could see May walk out of negotiations right at the beginning due to the financial payments. Some tories already threatened to rebell if she agrees to payments.
Once the actual negotiations start i expect this to get ugly between UK and EU and in internal UK politics
PJV3
Member
It depends if she can stop worrying about the Daily Mail for a few months and concentrate on the European audience.
QuicheFontaine
Member
I was wondering how both sides were reading the same thing and saying "yep, exactly how we said it would go". I'd be fairly happy if this is how it went over the next few years but I suppose there will be some potholes along the route.
It's a bit weird that they're so attached. This must be what a celebrity feels like when they have some super-stalkerish fan.
PJV3
Member
I took it as give us what we want quick enough and we might get around to what you want to talk about.
I didn't expect sensible EU dealmakers to rub our noses in it just for kicks, but I don't see it as them compromising, they're just dangling a carrot.
Doesn't that mean the UK will accept the four freedoms in the end which is the opposite of what Brexit people want?
If the climb down is the UK remains in the EU but on the road to reform, that would be amazing.
HazySaiyan
Banned
Yeah we don't have anybody like that on the Mainland...
I get the feeling saving face at home may end up taking higher priority than it should.
PJV3
Member
That's how the stupid security nonsense happened, you don't need to tell them how good we are at stuff, they know all about our innovative jams and marmalades.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Chittagong my dude, you okay? Post if you're okay.
Nobody wants to humiliate Britain. That wouldn't help anyone. I've seen the term Versailles contract flying around.
Then you have a total ignorance of the NI situation.
I'm just waiting until tories and british media start to try and use WWII as a argument in negotiations
You know the whole blargh blargh blargh EU = german empire thing
Britain does a pretty good job of humiliating itself without any help.
I don't even know who exactly those comments are supposed to play to.
Like, surely it doesn't take much beyond surface-level thinking to realise the security stuff is a fucked up excuse for a bargaining chip that helps nobody?
The import/export guff from Boris couldn't possibly be taken seriously, right?
I dunno. Maybe I'm overestimating the collective logical rationalisation skills of British public.
PJV3
Member
The British press want every decision to be dramatic, we asked to leave, so we have to sort out leaving first.
Also Fallon is a slimy toad and I hope that Trump goes long before we leave the EU. How any leading UK politician can suck up to that lunatic is beyond me.
QuicheFontaine
Member
Maybe so, but that's just the way I see it. Put passport controls on domestic flights and then surely NI people would still be being treated as being British? There a problem with this plan?
PdotMichael
Banned
Too bad we are talking about a nation that cries about some bananas.
Everything the EU does even if it the most rational thing on earth will be interpreted differently in the UK, because they are some special snowflakes who only deserve the best things.
Frankfurter
Member
Good lord...
Huw_Dawson
Member
A transitional arrangement beyond May 2020 would be good for anyone that wants the UK to get back into Europe quickly, fwiw.
Glad to see the EU being proactive and setting the correct tone early on.
There seem to be a lot of people in the comments sections on the BBC claiming that the UK should get a share of EU assets that we've helped pay for, particularly as a counter to the EU's 50 odd million "Brexit bill". Is there any realistic basis for this or is it people taking the whole divorce analogy a step too far?
There seem to be a lot of people in the comments sections on the BBC claiming that the UK should get a share of EU assets that we've helped pay for, particularly as a counter to the EU's 50 odd million "Brexit bill". Is there any realistic basis for this or is it people taking the whole divorce analogy a step too far?
PJV3
Member
The wine, art and office furniture?
I've seen this raised by a number of European commentators as well, so I think there is some seriousness to it. if Britain owns a share of the responsibility of the future, then it certainly owns a share of the investments of the past. It could well be that the EU were getting their "Brexit bill" in early to counter any claim.
PJV3
Member
If they mean infrastructure in nation states then the UK government should avoid that pandora's box
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
We'll wrap them up all nice and tidy for you.
Huw_Dawson
Member
I don't want that bloody statue of Ronaldo in my country kthx
Thought it was at a Spanish airport, joke fail, pls no more mocking
Sephiroth503
Member
I don't see how a non-hard border with the North is going to work. If it starts at the Northern Irish coast then how do they reconcile a part of the UK with no customs border to an EU country.
I won't claim to be an expert on the subject but it seems to me that it'll need an exemplary level of work on the negotiators parts to make it workable for the North and the UK.
I won't claim to be an expert on the subject but it seems to me that it'll need an exemplary level of work on the negotiators parts to make it workable for the North and the UK.
PJV3
Member
Time and the complications of valuing it all, maybe it will be easier than I am assuming.
Madeira is a portuguese island
Huw_Dawson
Member
Because that could open up the UK to similiar claims towards everything funded by the 27 EU countries which is a larger than the 50bn that is rumored now.
Luton is an AENA's airport (and AENA is 51% owned by Spain) and Ferrovial (a spanish company) has a 25% in BAA so...
Thats Portugal man....
PJV3
Member
And investments happening with a different number of members over time etc, I don't think the UK wants to spend that much time on it with a deadline looming.
benjipwns
Banned
that's what you get for trying to make jokes about places down the ol South American way.
And it was such a clever joke...
Berlin "BER" Brandenburg it is, then.
Free airport, delivered right to you. For free.
...no, no, we insist.
For a ball park figure it shouldn't be too hard (in the grand scheme of the overall negotiations). All land/property development will have a figure attached for expenditure, and I'd imagine most countries in the EU will be like the UK and have indexes and lookup tables for general worth of land/property.
Whether the outcome of that is worth anything.. no idea. It may be nothing more than a rounding error when set against the "Brexit bill", but it is something I can see being investigated as a potential negotiating tactic.
But the UK was a net contributor towards EU spending. Looking at it purely from a balance sheet point of view (and therefore being able to discard all the indirect benefits of paying into the EU which, let's be honest, were vast) the UK has a share of investments across Europe that are worth more than the direct investments made back to the UK.
As the UK is a net contributor I think we can safely say that it has spent more than it has received.
DarthMasta
Member
Neither do I, but I don't have a choice...
PJV3
Member
We are negotiating with the EU and national governments though, infrastructure should just be written off or we will get nowhere fast.
JonnyDBrit
Member
On a functional level, creating a 'unified Irish border' is probably the simplest thing, but it would also have the messiest political fallout as well. As mentioned, the Unionists will not accept such a blatant excising of their country from the rest of the UK, while those with Republican sympathies would likely use it to raise the question of why exactly they aren't just part of the Republic of Ireland, if they were to have an open border with them but need a passport to travel to the UK mainland - treated like foreigners in their own nation. Plus while it addresses the movement of physical goods, it would make an even bigger nightmare of the taxation of services if say, a company could base itself in a newly minted tax haven in NI, but have most of its actual production in Dublin or whatever.
Still, the promise of phased talks is interesting to think on. Nominally, it can possibly offer what May and the tories want - talks about trade prior to leaving the EU - but it does only after a bunch of other stuff gets cleared out first, meaning they could have not very long at all to actually sort out trade. But if they don't accept phased talks, the easy option as offered by the EU, then they look all the more selfish for it.
The last part of that sentence has no connection with the first. How can you live in this country and be so staggeringly ignorant of its history? Have you even heard of the Troubles?
Ok, I'll write off the infrastructure investments if you write off the payment of commitments. Deal?
There, we're making progress with this negotiation. Things are already looking up!
RocknRola
Member
QuicheFontaine
Member
Oi, don't go quoting half my post because you can't find any problems with my ace plan
Well yes, it is a ridiculous notion. There is some merit that the UK has a right to its fair share of EU assets though.
PJV3
Member
Fair enough, I will set up an independent commission to value it all, see you in a few years.
This goes into a quite technical legal question. It basically comes down to what is seen as assets. Is it only assets like infrastructre projects? Does it include R&D funding? Does it include agricultural funding? Does it include pension payments for MEP? Does it include EU institutions in the UK? Does it include contracts the UK already signed? Does it include loans made by EU investment fonds/banks?
UK might be a net contributor to current EU budget but there is a lot of assets that have not much to do with EU budget which is basically opening up the UK for claims it does not want to have.
If you take the european investment bank alone the UK has 6.9 billion euros in liabilities to it in 2016 alone.
The 50bn number is on liabilities the UK has agreed on before. If it doesn't pay for it the EU could sue the UK.
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