Germany: UK Must Surrender Sovereignty for an EU Trade Deal

Pro-European Union demonstrators protest outside the Houses of Parliament against the firs
TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
Victoria Friedman

A German official has said that the UK must surrender sovereignty if the country wants to strike a trade deal with the European Union.

Germany will take over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, a council of EU member-states’ ministers, in July and the country’s ambassador to the bloc is already lining up Germany as a key player in crunch negotiations between Brussels and London.

Michael Clauss said at an event hosted by the European Policy Centre think tank that there will be a trade deal — if the UK takes what he calls a “more realistic approach”.

“To put in short, I think you cannot have full sovereignty and, at the same time, full access to the internal market,” Mr Clauss said, according to The Guardian.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier used similar language over the weekend when he said the UK must become more “realistic” if it wants access to the Single Market, complaining that the UK was “cherry-picking”.

Barnier’s British counterpart David Frost has told the EU that it needs to treat the UK as an equal trading partner and offer a deal at least equivalent to others it had offered countries like Canada — but without the demands on alignment.

The UK will only regain full national sovereignty from the globalist superstate once it can take back control of its laws, borders, trading rules, and regulations.

However, the EU has demanded the UK remain aligned by the Brussels playbook to maintain a “level playing field” — with the likes of France fearing the UK could become competitive on the global market to the detriment of the bloc — including abiding by EU rules on environmental standards and state aid.

The EU also wants the European Court of Justice to be the arbiter of any future trade deal with the UK and demands continued access to Britain’s territorial fishing waters.

Failure to strike a deal will see the UK and EU trade with each other on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms. Clauss said: “We work under the assumption the United Kingdom is not going to ask for an extension. That means a deal needs to be struck in the next six months.”

However, given that the UK has said it will not move on issues such as laws and fishing, a WTO relationship by the end of December 2020 looks likely. Downing Street has said that there will be no progress on a trade deal unless the EU drops demands for regulatory alignment, and rejected claims that the British government was about to capitulate on fishing waters.

The Bank of England is taking no-deal seriously, telling British banks to prepare for WTO rules, according to reports on Wednesday.

Despite the exit date being set in law, London mayor Sadiq Khan has called for an extension to the transition period because of coronavirus.

Conservative MP and Brexiteer David Davis warned that the EU would want an extension so it can have access to more of Britons’ cash.

“They want our money for another two years,” the former Brexit secretary said on Monday.

Mr Davis also warned that extending weakens the UK’s negotiating hand, saying “every single time we extend, we weaken our position and strengthen theirs”.

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