Prof Valsamis Mitsilegas tells NI committee that the agreement on JHA is dynamic, as EU values UK inputs, and EU law will evolve over time, and value of system to UK will mean adaptation

EXCLUSIVE. "We want a Brexit deal with the UK. But the EU is ready for No Deal"

I interviewed Joao @ValedeAlmeidaEU, EU’s first ambassador to the UK. He expressed many interesting comments on the ongoing #Brexit negotiations

THREAD with some

1. Ambassador Vale de Almeida:

the aim is a "fruitful, ambitious, forward-looking relationship between the EU and the UK after Brexit". BUT "it is very important to make sure that the Withdrawal Agreement is fully and completely implemented".

#Brexit

2. Then he said:

Another challenge is "to engage with the British authorities, [...] Whitehall, No10, FCDO and beyond, but also with the DEVOLVED UK nations. This country is a union. It's not only the government in London, BUT ALSO the governments in the 3 devolved nations".

3. But we'll talk later about this.

Then the Ambassador said that #Brexit "is a moment of sadness because we're losing one member of the family, but also we [the EU] need to reflect, draw lessons from it" and "to be humble as well about Europe and the project itself".

4. Which lessons?

Amb: "We [EU] need to connect better with people, understand better what are people's concerns, accept that there are national situations that need to be given full attention. We need to be humble and question ourselves: "Are we doing the right thing"

#Brexit

As @michaelgove admitted yesterday we are expecting significant disruption in our #trade flows with the EU in coming days. The fact he is willing to say this confirms what most of us feel, that problems are building. This thread is a summary of what I have learnt in the past week

DISCLAIMER I run a trade body and spent the week in my back bedroom on the phone to members, reading the media and on zoom calls. I’m not on the ground and I am not in the operation rooms. So my info is second hand and partial. No one has a complete view. IT IS HIDEOUSLY COMPLEX

The first obvious problem is the number of different actors involved. On the commercial side - within 1 exporter there are multiple depts. There is also the buying company and the logistics company. They all have to sync. 1 load of goods involves multiple commercial actors.

On the government side its even more complex. In UK there are dozens of departments and agencies involved, and the same if not more in every member state of the EU. there are hundreds of thousands of decision makers involved.

They all have the same rule book though - YES true but its 1200 pages long and it's 15 days old - also - here's the thing with red tape, it's open to interpretation. (It's why lawyers tend to drive nice cars) and so being BORDER READY means different things to different actors.

Ireland's foreign min @SimonCoveney says there will be no breakthru at the #euco this wk, that EU fishermen will not be "sold out" in order to secure a future relationship deal, and that if there is a deal it will not be ratified unless the UK "remove" Internal Mkt Bill clauses

2/ Speaking at the General Affairs Council Mr Coveney said: “We value fishermen, we value their contribution across the EU and cerainly EU fishermen are not going to be sold out in an effort to get an agreement on a future relationship with the UK on trade.”

3/ He said that while there had been some progress on the level playing field area, there had been “little or no” movement on fisheries. Both sides, he said, had legitimate concerns on the issue.

4/ Mr Coveney had bilateral meetings with both @MichelBarnier and @MarosSefcovic

5/ “There was a very clear message that if we do manage to negotiate a deal on a future relationship agreement that involves many different areas, before that deal can be ratified or finalised, the domestic legislation that the UK has introduced...

Over the past 15 days I have not only been running my company as normal but I have been faced with largest threat to its future since it began in 1992. This is #Brexit & here is my thread on just how bad things are getting. 1/26

Six months ago my business started to prepare for Brexit. We obtained the following licences and accreditations JUST to maintain the status quo. EORI number, RORO badge for Chief, GBRC number, GBWK number, we already had ARWS and DAN accounts. 2/26

All of this took nearly five months a lot of form filling but on the 9th December this was all in place. So I would say whilst we knew Brexit would be a car crash we did not know it was going to be a multiple pile up in the fog with fatalities. 3/26

On January 4th I returned to work being wise enough to have stockpiled just enough so that if we had a bumpy ride in January we would have enough stock to last until February. 4/26

I should add this took a considerable amount of cash flow and management to do this during a lockdown/ pandemic combined with Xmas sales. But we managed. 5/26

Ten days in and it seems the government's post-Brexit economic policy is to ignore reality, priority and choice, and just claim with no evidence that everything is going to be great. This, needless to say, is dangerous territory. Exhibit 1... 1/

Here's a good example of what is currently passing for UK economic policy. The theory the UK can be 'nimble' in regulations has been present since 2016. In 5 years nobody has found the detail. We presume others might have a similar idea. And trade needs regulations to align 2/

There will of course always be someone to blame. Usually the EU. Because they do indeed want to compete with the UK. This is not exactly surprising. A vague UK idea versus the bigger next door market (or indeed a big one over the pond). Who's going to win? 3/

Next, 'Global Britain' and specifically the Liz Truss speech in the Commons yesterday. To summarise, we are going to do trade deals on everything with everyone while still protecting UK industry and poor countries. Yup, more warm words and no priorities.

Useful example here. The long running EU-US trade battle over food, one claiming to be about quality, the other science. The UK solution. We'll do both! Fabulous, why did nobody think of this before? Unless they did, and found they still had to choose. Note other warm words 5/