Another round of 'Brexit' negotiations has come and gone and, once again, the lugubrious Michel Barnier has grumbled about the lack of progress and implied intransigence of the UK. However, behind the scenes, it appears as though Barnier's bosses may be starting to see things a bit differently.
Barnier was given a brief to follow and, like a good little bureaucrat, he's following it to the letter. In his eyes, the UK must agree the so-called 'exit bill' before talks can move on to issues such as trade; that this position is unsustainable matters not one jot to Mr Barnier. The illogic seems to escape him - how can the UK agree a final bill before it knows what the final terms of its divorce are ?
However, it is now being reported that there is movement from the European Union. It is claimed that an 'internal document' prepared by some other EU bureaucrat suggests that the remaining 27 countries should start discussing potential post-Brexit trade arrangements among themselves in readiness for subsequent discussions with the UK. Clearly, someone in the EU has woken up to the very simple fact that post-Brexit trade arrangements are even more important to the EU than they are to the UK.
Of course, this doesn't mean that there will be any sudden change in the rhetoric but it does suggest that, at last, the intransigence of the EU might be beginning to break and a degree of realism might be emerging. Perhaps they've started to understand that a 'no deal' scenario is a genuine possibility and that the UK really could just walk away, paying nothing at all. From the EU's point of view, that would be true catastrophe.
Let's hope that the EU leaders, who meet next week, demonstrate rather more realism than the hidebound Barnier has been able to manage so far.
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