Juncker says, again: No ‘sufficient progress’ in Brexit talks

European Commission president says EU27 leaders should not have to pay for the UK’s decision to leave.

STRASBOURG — EU taxpayers should not be made to pay for the U.K.’s decision to leave the bloc, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament on Tuesday, adding that there had not yet been “sufficient progress” in the negotiations.

In a short speech to open the Parliament’s plenary debate on Brexit in Strasbourg, Juncker emphasized his intention to stick to the bloc’s hard lines on key divorce issues.

“The taxpayers of the EU27 should not pay for the British decision,” he told MEPs.

The president remarked on the “optimistic note” struck by Prime Minister Theresa May in her speech in Florence last month but said, “speeches are not negotiating positions,” and added that “the devil will be as always in the details.”

Juncker said that he recognized there had been progress on some issues in the fourth round of talks in Brussels last week, notably on the rights of EU citizens in the U.K., but he said they had yet to agree the “indispensable role” of the European Court of Justice in guaranteeing those rights. EU leaders are due to deliver their verdict at the European Council meeting later this month on whether there has been sufficient progress in the talks to move on to phase two: the U.K.’s future relationship with the bloc.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, sitting to Juncker’s left, echoed the president’s comments, adding that discussions will be needed “on what the new period of transition would be.” Barnier also said the EU’s behavior “will remain resolutely constructive” in the fifth round of negotiations next week, “because we want to succeed.”

But the audience in the Parliament, where leaders have relished playing the role of “bad cop” in the Brexit process, was much more critical.

The leaders of the main political groups leveled harsh words and offered a pessimistic assessment of the Brexit negotiations, stressing that the slow pace of talks was partly due to British government infighting on what kind of deal it wants.

MEP Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party, said Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s recent attacks against May show “the British government is trapped by their own party quarrels and political contradictions,” he said.

“London is very creative in putting red lines on the table, for pleasing their party supporters,” Weber said. “However they fail to give any solution for the voters and citizens.”

“Theresa May, please don’t put your party first. Put please Britain first, put please the citizens first,” Weber added. He called on May to “sack” Johnson.

His Socialist counterpart Gianni Pittella called May’s position on the U.K.’s financial settlement with the EU “too vague.” The British government, he said, “plays with numbers, without ever taking any precise responsibility.” On Ireland, Pittella said he was unclear on “how the British authorities want the advantages of the single market without being officially part of it.”

The Parliament’s Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt said the Cabinet disunity meant, “it’s difficult to make sufficient progress and it’s difficult to make the step towards the second phase of negotiations,” Verhofstadt said. He told MEPs that he hoped May would bring “further clarity” in her speech Wednesday at the Tory Party conference in Manchester.

Even Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right United Kingdom Independence Party, acknowledged that May had delivered a “mixed message.”

The Parliament has no formal role in the Brexit negotiations but it does have the power to veto the final withdrawal deal.

Following the debate, MEPs are due to vote on a resolution calling on EU leaders to postpone their assessment of whether the Brexit talks have made enough progress to move to the next phase “unless there is a major breakthrough” in the next round in October.