EU Brexit negotiator says talks will be less than 2 years

Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem also said Britain appeared to want the EU’s benefits with none of its obligation.

“We are entering uncharted waters”, said the French former foreign minister.

He said, “Time will be short”.

Trades unionists are concerned that Britain could negotiate new trade agreements with European Union and other countries that erode workers’ benefits won under European Union laws, in an effort to make British goods and services cheaper and more competitive that those of other trading nations.

“Indian companies here will face the same problems that Britain will face on Brexit, so you can not go and do a Brexit negotiation with the European Union without taking into confidence other companies”, Patnaik said. “All the ratification procedures should be finished by” March 2019.

The EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit warned Tuesday that the country will have less than 18 months once talks begin and that it won’t be allowed to pick and choose what parts of the EU it wants to keep.

Although Theresa May was certain that her plans for Brexit would become official next spring, a wrench was thrown into them back in October, when the U.K. High Court ruled that no progress would occur before an official vote took place in parliament.

And she claimed Britain’s expertise in sophisticated crime fighting would be a central plank of her negotiation strategy. “Is it hard, soft, it is gray, white?”

“People talk about the sort of Brexit that there is going to be, is it hard, soft, is it grey, white, actually we want a red, white and blue Brexit”, she said in an interview with Sky News.

In a round of TV interviews aboard the Royal Navy’s flagship HMS Ocean, Mrs May told Sky News: “We also want to get the best possible trade deal for trading with, and operating within, a single European market”.

“It is incredibly important that China and our other partners and friends across the world know, this is in no way about Britain closing its doors to the outside world”, said British Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt at a press conference in Shanghai.

Irish ministers and officials have been meeting regularly with their European Union counterparts to make sure the message gets through. “Keep calm and negotiate”, he said, referring to the British wartime mantra of “Keep calm and carry on”.

This background gives Barnier two great strengths in leading the negotiations.

The Frenchman was in charge of European Union funding for Northern Ireland when he was regional commissioner in the early 2000s, and visited Dublin in October, where the Taoiseach set out “Ireland’s unique set of priorities” on Brexit, including the border.

What can be deduced from Barnier’s comments is that in a game of “blink” the Commission very much expects the United Kingdom to move first.

Although his battles with London’s bankers were often exaggerated, the choice of Barnier was described as an “act of war” by some British journalists and was greeted with undisguised glee by Brussels europhiles.

The Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas and two other judges decided that Ms May lacked power to use the royal prerogative to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and start the two-year process of negotiating Brexit without the prior authority of Parliament.

Responding to the comments, Downing Street said it would be “wrong” to put a deadline on talks, stating: “It is our Article 50 as well, because we are members of the EU”.