Brexit: EU may veto UK trade deal lacking safeguards, leaked report reveals

Draft resolution urges British government to ‘revise its negotiating position’
 The European parliament in Brussels. Common standards on environment, workers’ rights and state subsidies are some of the main stumbling blocks of Brexit talks. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels-Wed 10 Jun 2020 


The European parliament could veto any trade deal between the UK and the European Union that lacks “robust” safeguards to ensure fair competition and strong standards on the environment and workers’ rights, according to a leaked document.

A draft resolution, seen by the Guardian, which will be put to a vote on Friday, underlines the implicit threat to block the EU-UK trade deal. Urging the British government to “revise its negotiation position”, the text states that a level playing field is the “necessary condition for the European parliament to give its consent to a trade agreement with the UK”.

The level playing field – common standards on environment, workers’ rights and state subsidies for companies – is one of the main stumbling blocks of Brexit talks that has contributed to the current deadlock.

The parliament’s text underlines the narrow room for manoeuvre available to the EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who last week hinted at a possible concession on state aid – the rules that limit government subsidies for companies. Barnier declined to back publicly the EU’s opening demand that European rules on state aid must be written into UK law.

The parliament resolution, however, states that EU standards must be safeguarded to avoid a “race to the bottom”, while revealing little slack to escape the EU’s opening position of matching EU rules on state aid – so-called “dynamic alignment”.

Brussels sources have played down talk of imminent compromise on the crucial issue of state aid.