Last week, Members of Parliament (MPs) approved the Article 50 bill, green-lighting Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU). If the House of Lords follows suit, which is far from certain, then the British government will follow the lead of the British people and invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. (Article 50 gives member states the right to withdraw from the EU.)
The Economist reported:
“But a different sort of Brexit bill is approaching and will be harder to manage. It could yet scupper the whole process. Leave campaigners promised voters that Brexit would save the taxpayer £350m ($440m) a week. That pledge was always tendentious. But officials in Brussels are drawing up a bill for departure that could mean Britain’s contributions remain close to its membership dues for several years after it leaves. In a new report for the Centre for European Reform, a think-tank, Alex Barker, a Financial Times correspondent, puts the figure at anything between €24.5bn ($26.1bn) and €72.8bn.”
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, indicated the matter of how much Britain owes must be settled before questions about Britain’s future relationship (i.e., trade agreements) with the EU can be addressed, according to Bloomberg.
To date, Prime Minister Theresa May has been taking a hard line, which has roiled tempers throughout the EU. Bloomberg reported the Prime Minister’s comments:
“…are elevating the likelihood that the United Kingdom leaves the bloc in 2019 without an exit deal, let alone the sweeping trade pact it seeks…The messages from the diplomats are that EU governments are preparing to enforce their line that the United Kingdom can’t be better off outside the bloc than inside it and that they value safeguarding their own interests and regional stability above the need to maintain good relations with the United Kingdom.”
The pending negotiations bring to mind the words of German Field Marshal Helmut Von Moltke, “No operation extends with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the main body of the enemy.”
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SOURCES:
https://www.ft.com/content/7c25dd1c-ee1f-11e6-930f-061b01e23655 (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/02-13-17_FinancialTimes-MPs_Give_Green_Light_for_Theresa_May_to_Trigger_Brexit-Footnote_5.pdf)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2016/577971/EPRS_BRI(2016)577971_EN.pdf
http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21716629-bitter-argument-over-money-looms-multi-billion-euro-exit-charge-could-sink-brexit?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/2017029n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/email (or go to https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/peakcontent/+Peak+Commentary/02-13-17_TheEconomist-The_Multi-Billion-Euro_Exit_Charge_that_Could_Sink_Brexit_Talks-Footnote_7.pdf)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-10/bad-tempered-brexit-talks-loom-as-may-s-demands-irk-eu-officials
http://www.ralphkeyes.com/quote-verifier/