Britain’s int’l credibility at stake, warns EU

BRUSSELS/PARIS: European Council chief Charles Michel warned Britain on Sunday that its international credibility is at stake, saying it must fulfil its responsibility to implement the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

Michel made the comment on Twitter after speaking by telephone with Irish prime minister Micheal Martin, as London prepares legislation that could upend a hard-won compromise over the EU member’s border with Northern Ireland.

It is “time for UK Government to take its responsibilities. International credibility of UK signature at stake,” Michel wrote. “Withdrawal Agreement to be fully implemented, ensure peace & stability in Ireland & preserve the integrity of Single Market,” he added.

The British government on Wednesday introduced new legislation to rewrite the Brexit withdrawal treaty — a bill that is causing deep alarm among former prime ministers and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s own MPs. Under the EU withdrawal treaty, Northern Ireland will enjoy a special status to ensure no return of a border with EU member Ireland, in line with the 1998 peace pact that ended three decades of bloodshed.

But Johnson on Saturday accused the EU of threatening to tear the UK apart by imposing a food “blockade” between Britain and Northern Ireland.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier Sunday said that the protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland “is not a threat to the integrity of the UK. “We agreed this delicate compromise” with Johnson and the British government “in order to protect peace & stability on the island of Ireland”, he said on Twitter. Meanwhile, a French government minister said it was “inconceivable” that Britain would ditch parts of its Brexit treaty with the EU in defiance of international law, in remarks published on Sunday.

“The United Kingdom is a great democracy,” French European Affairs minister Clement Beaune wrote in Le Parisien newspaper. “It is inconceivable that the government and parliament would renege an agreement that they themselves negotiated and voted on, breaking the promises that they made,” he said.

“On the European side, we have always been calm, determined and, more than anything, very firm and very united,” Beaune said. “If the British think they can commit multiple breaches of the contract with the aim of dividing Europe, they won’t succeed.”

The absence of any agreement on Britain’s EU exit would be “bad news”, the minister said, “but we’re getting ready”. French Prime Minister Jean Castex would soon convene his cabinet to accelerate preparations for all possible Brexit scenarios, “including a no deal”, he said.