Germany: no punishment for UK, but EU exit good for no one

She will not take part in day-to-day negotiations but is expected to set Britain’s approach and have the final say on any compromises or concessions. That will involve everything from deciding what waters each side can fish in to how nuclear agreements should be renegotiated. While denying they want to punish their neighbor, European Union officials have warned Britain off trying to “cherry pick” the benefits of membership and said it will be left worse off outside the bloc than inside.

The Brexit secretary said he was determined to build “a strong and special partnership” with the EU, as he began talks at the European Commission in Brussels.

Merkel said Monday: “I think it is premature to speculate on the first day of the negotiations how they will end”.

“It’s a statement of common sense that if we are going to radically change the way we work together, we need to get there via a slope, not a cliff edge”, he said. Opposition politicians say the government ignored recommendations from a 2013 review after another London fire killed six people.

EU Commission negotiator Michel Barnier.

Barnier said there will be one week of negotiations every month and the two sides will use the time in between to work out proposals. Such firms sold 7.3 billion euros ($8.2 billion) worth of goods to customers in Britain a year ago, their fourth-biggest market.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz says: “If we don’t succeed both sides will lose”.

Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis, noting there were more things uniting the European Union and Britain than dividing them, said London wanted a deep and special relationship and that he would talk in a positive and constructive tone.

Almost a year to the day since Britons shocked themselves and their neighbors by voting on June 23 to cut loose from their main trading partner, and nearly three months since Prime Minister Theresa May locked them into a two-year countdown to Brexit in March 2019, almost nothing about the future is clear. “These talks will be hard at points, but we will be approaching them in a constructive way”. A second phase of talks on future trade relations will follow only after they are satisfied that sufficient progress has been made on these issues.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Monday he still thinks that the Brexit negotiations will yield “a happy resolution that can be done with profit and honor for both sides”.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told Sunday’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that “maybe there is now a chance to achieve a so-called “soft Brexit.'” But he said staying in the single market would require Britain to accept European Union workers” freedom of movement.

Britain is due to leave the European Union at midnight Brussels time (11pm in the UK) on March 29 2019 – unless an extension is agreed by all 27 remaining member states – with or without an agreement.

The Prime Minister’s legacy will be defined by whether she makes good on her promise to make a success of Brexit.