Boris Johnson will on Thursday junk previous commitments to Brussels as he publishes Britain’s goals for a trade deal with the EU, setting up a row over the so-called “level playing field” on which the two sides will do business.
Mr Johnson’s negotiating mandate will insist that Britain should enjoy full control over its own rules in areas such as state aid, labour laws and the environment, while also setting out a tough stance on fishing rights.
The detailed UK mandate, to be published in a white paper, is already being seen in Brussels as a flagrant breach of undertakings given by Mr Johnson to create a “robust” and mutually agreed regime to ensure “fair and open competition”.
Michel Barnier, EU chief negotiator, insisted Britain should honour commitments given by Mr Johnson in a non-legally binding political declaration last October. Speaking on Tuesday, he banged the podium and said: “All the words count.”
But Downing Street insisted that the political declaration did not carry the same status as the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement — now enshrined in international law — saying it contained only “aspirations and priorities” for a future trade deal.
Mr Johnson’s allies say the EU’s own negotiating mandate, published this week, omitted elements of the political declaration, including a June 30 deadline for outlining a regulatory regime for financial services.
“It’s not as if they are treating it as a tablet of stone,” said one ally of the prime minister. Mr Johnson’s allies said the key document was now the election manifesto on which the prime minister was elected in December, not the political declaration.
The manifesto committed Britain to taking back control of its laws, money and borders and to seeking a “Canada-style” free trade agreement.
Yet the October political declaration accepted that Britain’s “geographic proximity” to the EU and the close trade ties between the two sides required “robust commitments to ensure a level playing field”.
It added the two sides “should uphold the common high standards applicable in the Union and the United Kingdom at the end of the transition period at the end of the year in the areas of state aid, competition, social and employment standards, environment, climate change, and relevant tax matters”.
Mr Johnson insists Britain tends to have higher standards than the EU and that it has no intention of undercutting its 27 neighbours. The EU wants to use its rules as “a reference point” and for its own state aid regime to apply in the UK.
The British will also insist that it regains full control over its fishing waters, striking annual access deals with the EU in the same way as Norway or Iceland. Brussels wants a regime that maintains existing access.
Meanwhile, Mr Barnier on Wednesday warned that the bloc will be strict in policing whether goods are really “made in Britain” once the country is outside of the bloc’s single market.
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator said conditions for exporters would be different once the transition period expires, as he spelt out the new frictions that would affect trade even if the UK and the EU succeed in negotiating a tariff-free, quota-free deal.
“Of course we love ‘made in Britain,’ of course, but we must have guarantees that the goods we import from the UK tariff and quota free really are British,” Mr Barnier said in a speech to a business school.
The chief negotiator said that no trade deal would spare UK products from “rules of origin” checks when entering the EU market and that this was only one of the many new obstacles that both sides would have to prepare for.
Mr Johnson has insisted that the country is ready to accept friction and barriers to trade as the price of securing a “Canada-style deal” with full regulatory independence.
“We are ready to offer to the UK super preferential access to our markets, a level of access that would be unprecedented with a third country, and this with a direct competitor that is right on our doorstep,” said Mr Barnier.
