LONDON/BRUSSELS: The European Union was on Thursday exploring possible legal action against Britain over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to undercut parts of the Brexit divorce treaty, with EU officials saying London may already be in breach of the treaty.
As Britain pushed ahead with its plan to act outside international law by breaching its divorce treaty with the bloc, EU officials said it may have already violated the treaty’s good faith obligations by declaring it could renege on parts of it.
With chances of a messy Brexit growing, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic expressed concern about the plan before a meeting with senior British minister Michael Gove in London as chief negotiators met for trade talks.
EU diplomats and officials said the bloc could use the Withdrawal Agreement to take legal action against Britain, though there would be no resolution before the end-of-year deadline for Britain’s full exit.
One EU source said Britain would not succeed if it tries to use the planned breach of the Withdrawal Agreement as a threat to extract concessions from the bloc in trade talks.
“If they try to do that, it will fail,” the EU source said.
A note distributed by the EU executive to member states said London may have broken the treaty’s good faith obligations.
The British government says it is committed to the treaty and that a proposed law overriding parts of the Withdrawal Agreement merely clarifies ambiguities. Its main priority, it says, is the 1998 Northern Irish peace deal that ended decades of violence.
In a sign London was not backing down, it said the bill would be debated on Monday.
Europe’s leaders have been handed an ultimatum: accept the treaty breach or prepare for a messy divorce. Britain signed the treaty and formally left the EU in January, but leaves the EU’s single market only when a transition agreement expires at the end of this year.
The pound, which tends to fall when Brexit hits a snag, fell against the dollar and the euro. It has dropped below 92 pence per euro for the first time since March.
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde said she was carefully monitoring developments.
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Talks on a trade deal have been stuck over state aid rules and fishing. Without an agreement, nearly $1 trillion in trade between the EU and Britain could be thrown into confusion at the start of 2021, compounding the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The latest dispute centres on rules for Northern Ireland, which shares a land border with EU member Ireland. Under the 1998 agreement, there must be no hard border in Ireland.
To ensure that, the British-EU divorce pact calls for Northern Ireland to continue to apply some EU rules. But Britain’s new bill, unveiled this week, would assert the power to override many of those EU rules, acknowledging that London would be violating international law by doing so.
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said any move by Britain that undermined the 1998 peace agreement would ensure that a potential U.S.-UK trade deal would not pass the U.S. Congress.
Former British leaders Theresa May and John Major scolded Johnson for considering an explicit, intentional breach of international law. Major said Britain would lose “our reputation for honouring the promises we make.”
European diplomats said Britain was playing a game of Brexit “chicken”, threatening to wreck the process and challenging Brussels to change course. Some fear Johnson views a no-deal exit as a useful distraction from the pandemic.
“I’m not optimistic at this stage,” Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin told national broadcaster RTE when asked how confident he was in the EU and Britain reaching a trade deal.
(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Additional reporting by William James and Elizbath Piper in London, Padraic Halpin in Dublin and John Chalmers in Brussels; Editing by Kim Coghill, Peter Graff and Timothy Heritage)
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