DUBLIN: European governments and business should “get prepared” for a no-deal Brexit scenario, the EU’s chief negotiator has said, as talks over Britain’s departure from the bloc become increasingly clouded by disagreements over Northern Ireland. Michel Barnier warned that a British hard exit was “a possibility” that cannot be ignored, with disruption to everything from airlines to the right of “cats and dogs to cross the Channel”.
“Everyone should get prepared for it, governments, companies — we are getting prepared technically,” he told Journal du Dimanche, the French newspaper. “On 29 March 2019, the UK will become a third-party country.”
The call for EU “preparedness” comes as Mr Barnier gave Britain two weeks to make a big financial offer — estimated to be up to €40bn — and as Dublin steps up its political demands over the future of Northern Ireland after Brexit.
With a deal on citizens’ rights in sight and an increased UK financial offer in prospect, Dublin’s hardening position has prompted questions as to whether the Irish question — the last of the three principal issues in the divorce talks — becomes the most intractable of all at a crunch summit in December.
The government of Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, doubled down on its demands last week. It called for a five-year transition period and pressed for Northern Ireland to remain under the writ of EU customs and internal market rules — after the UK leaves the bloc.
Dublin is anxious about the lack of concrete proposals from London to avoid border checks on the Northern Irish frontier that could undermine the 1998 Good Friday peace pact.
