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Plenary session of the European Parliament yesterday on the occasion of the debate on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

Mr President,

Honourable Members,

In less than 60 days, the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union. This is a bad decision, as I find.

Even as the Commission has defended the interests of the European Union, this spirit of respect and friendship has accompanied us at every step in these negotiations. The Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration agreed by all 27 Leaders and the United Kingdom government is the result of that. The Withdrawal Agreement remains the best and only deal possible.

The European Union said so in November. We said so in December. We said so after the first meaningful vote in the Commons in January. The debate and votes in the House of Commons yesterday do not change that. The Withdrawal Agreement will not be renegotiated.

Both sides have said loud and clear that there can be no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland. No slipping back into darker times past. I believe the Prime Minister's personal commitment on this point. But I also believe that we need a safety net that secures us against this risk. We have no incentive nor desire to use the safety net. But at the same time, no safety net can ever truly be safe if it can just be removed at any time.

Sometimes, from time to time, I have the impression that some hope that the 26 other countries will abandon the backstop and so Ireland at the last minute. But this is not a game. And neither is it a simple bilateral issue. It goes to the heart of what being a member of the European Union means. Ireland's border is Europe's border – and it is our Union's priority.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We know from yesterday's debate that the House of Commons is against many things. It is against a no-deal Brexit. It is against the backstop. But we still do not know what exactly the House of Commons is actually for.

The concept of 'alternative arrangements' is not new. It was discussed in the negotiations. It is referred to in the Political Declaration. And in our letter to Prime Minister May, Donald Tusk and I committed to exploring it further as a matter of priority. But a concept is not a plan. It is not an operational solution. Many in the House of Commons – both among those who voted for and those who voted against the amendment – are aware of this.

I will continue to be in close contact with Prime Minister May – for whom I have the greatest respect – and I will listen to her ideas. But I will also be extremely clear about the position of the European Union, that I have presented to you today.

Monsieur le Président,

Mesdames et Messieurs,

Laissez-moi vous dire clairement que le vote hier a accru le risque d'un retrait désordonné du Royaume-Uni. Nous devons continuer à tout faire pour nous préparer à tous les scenarios, y compris le pire.

La Commission a commencé ses travaux préparatoires en décembre 2017. Et ces dernières semaines, en étroite coopération avec votre Parlement, Monsieur le Président, nous avons accéléré nos préparations. J'ai envoyé une équipe dans chaque capitale pour aider les Etats membres à être prêts. Le Conseil européen a apporté son appui à ce travail depuis le début.

Nous avons à ce jour publié 88 notifications montrant quelles seront les conséquences du Brexit dans différents domaines ainsi que 18 propositions ou actes législatifs. Les trois dernières propositions portant sur le programme Erasmus, la sécurité sociale et le budget de l'Union européenne ont été adoptées et présentées aujourd'hui. Je voudrais d'ores et déjà remercier tous les Membres du Parlement qui sont concernés afin de garantir que nous parvenions à des accords rapides sur ces propositions et sur tous les dossiers urgents en attente.

Il est plus que jamais important que l'Union européenne reste calme, unie, déterminée ainsi qu'elle a été tout au long de ce processus. Dans ce travail, nous devons suivre une règle d'or: nous ne devons pas reproduire les bénéfices de l'accord de retrait ou de la déclaration politique.

Dear colleagues,

I am – and still am – an optimist by nature, and a believer in democratic institutions by conviction. This leads me to believe that there can and will be agreement with the United Kingdom so that we can move on and move forward together with our new partnership.

We will work day and night to make it happen – and to ensure that we are ready in case it does not. Whichever way, I will always ensure that this House is the first to know and the last to decide.

Thank you.

Speech by Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier (English translation)

Mr. President,

Ladies and gentlemen, Members of Parliament,

Secretary of State,

Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to speak before you again, and thereby building – day after day – alongside President Juncker, a climate of trust, transparency, and dialogue with you, and in particular with the Brexit Steering Group, chaired by Guy Verhofstadt, with a meeting almost every week.

Yesterday, for the first time, Prime Minister Theresa May openly called for the reopening of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Even before the votes last night, she distanced herself from the agreement she herself negotiated and on which we agreed.

The British government subsequently gave the government's explicit support to the amendment made by Sir Graham Brady, which requests that the backstop, which is foreseen in the Protocol on Ireland, is replaced by alternative arrangements, which have never actually been defined.

At the same time, the House of Commons, rejected the « no-deal” scenario, without, however, specifying how to avoid such a scenario.

This is the situation we find ourselves in this afternoon, in this long and extraordinary negotiation, at a serious and important moment.

President Tusk last night, and President Juncker just now recalled that we share the British Parliament's desire to avoid a « no-deal ». I agree with Theresa May: voting against a “no-deal” does not eliminate the risk of a “no-deal”.

For us, the Withdrawal Agreement is – and remains – the best and only way to ensure the UK's orderly withdrawal and to put in place, in an orderly manner, the sovereign decision of the majority of the British people to leave the European Union – which we respect.

I think that we can reach this objective, if each and every one of us is realistic and clear-headed, respectful and responsible.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The backstop is part and parcel of the Withdrawal Agreement and it will not be renegotiated.

The December European Council conclusions – which are fully in line with the recent resolutions by the European Parliament – do not leave any room for doubt on this point.

This backstop is not about being dogmatic. It is a realistic solution. Under your control, we looked for solutions throughout this negotiation to the problem created in Ireland by Brexit. 

The backstop – as in the Withdrawal Agreement – is the result of extremely intense negotiations over the past two years with the United Kingdom, never against the United Kingdom.

The backstop is a pragmatic response to the unique situation on the island of Ireland, after the United Kingdom took a sovereign decision to leave the European Union, its Single Market and Customs Union.

Two years were necessary to find a solution that brought together several demands:

The first demand, for all of us, was to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland, i.e. to preserve peace, stability and dialogue, which has existed on the island of Ireland since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. I recall that the United Kingdom confirmed its commitment as a co-guarantor of this agreement. And we ourselves have accompanied the success of this cooperation between communities over the past twenty years through the PEACE programme, through EU law, through EU policies, and through the EU budget.

The second demand was the British government's wish to keep Northern Ireland and Great Britain in a single customs territory;

The third demand, which was obviously ours, and for which we are collectively responsible, is the preservation of the integrity of the Single Market.

Ladies and gentlemen,

This last point is fundamental: the Irish border will become – as was the UK's decision – the European Union and Single Market's border.  It will be our new external border. What is in play here is the protection of all EU consumers and businesses.

The UK's decision to leave the Union, the Single Market and the Customs Union has a practical consequence: every product that enters Northern Ireland from Great Britain enters not only Northern Ireland and Ireland, but also the Single Market, in your countries. Safety requires fiscal, sanitary, veterinary, regulatory controls. We do this at each of our external borders, everywhere in the European Union. We owe this protection to consumers and to all those who live in the Single Market.

And amongst those who are demanding the removal of the backstop, there are some British MPs, some of whom negotiated with us, and know perfectly well that the backstop was the solution found to respond to the core of our principles: the complete protection of the EU's Single Market.

I would like to say, after what President Juncker said, that we will do nothing to weaken the Single Market. We will do nothing that would lead to compromising the future of the European Union.

As the President said, we are, however, open to alternative arrangements, as discussed by the House of Commons yesterday.

The Protocol on Ireland and the Political Declaration mention them. The letter by Presidents Tusk and Juncker made it a priority in the future negotiations. We are ready to work on them immediately after the signature of the Withdrawal Agreement.

But nobody today – on either side – is able to clarify precisely what these alternative arrangements are operationally and how they would effectively achieve the objectives of the backstop.

That is why, at this current moment and given the Withdrawal Agreement, we need the backstop as it is.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Rejecting the backstop as it is today would be to reject the solution that was found with the British, but the problem would still remain.

On this point, and beyond the question of alternative arrangements which I have just spoken about, the European Council, just like the European Parliament, have many times clearly rejected the idea of a time limit or a unilateral exit from the backstop because that would remove the meaning of the backstop, which is an insurance policy, something that we do not want to use, but that we need.

I would add, finally, that the Withdrawal Agreement goes beyond the Irish question:

It secures the rights of the 4.5 million citizens. President Tajani, you mentioned the Parliament's priority, we mentioned ours, and whatever happens, citizens' rights will remain our priority. 

It protects all beneficiaries of the EU budget by ensuring that all commitments made at 28 will be financed at 28 ;

It puts in place a 21-month transition period during which businesses and administrations on both sides will have time to prepare for our future relationship and during which we will have time to negotiate our future relationship.

This agreement is necessary to build the trust that we need between the United Kingdom – which will remain an ally, friend, and partner – and the European Union.

On the future relationship, the EU is ready – and will remain ready over the coming days – to be more ambitious and to rework the nature and intensity of our future economic relationship, in particular. Many models of economic cooperation with third countries are possible, and we are ready to explore them, in respect of our European principles and the balance of rights and obligations. If the UK request evolves beyond a simple free trade agreement and towards one or more of these models, we will be immediately ready to discuss them, as you said in your resolutions, and as the European Council has already said.

But, less than 60 days from the UK's withdrawal date and in the absence today of a positive majority in favour of an identified solution that is acceptable to the European Union, it is urgent for us to prepare for all scenarios and to put in place contingency measures – the preparation of which President Juncker has entrusted to the Secretary-General of the Commission and all the teams which work with you – and which are now more important than ever.