Brussels, Belgium. Any divorce bill has to include some demand to start negotiation, but the EU bill submitted to the United Kingdom for its “Brexit” divorce is so far beyond reality, even EU leagal experts think it a “bridge too far.”
European Commission lawyers have now admitted that the €100 billion Brexit bill is ‘legally impossible’ to enforce. Newly releassed minutes of internal meetings of Brussels’s Brexit negotiating team reveal that lawyers had warned against pursuing the UK for extra payments.
That is not stopping EU member states who are still asking for €100 billion euros from the government of the United Kingdom, an increased hike of €40bn from the original bill. In the recorded minutes Nadia Calvino, the director general in charge of the budget, argued against hiking the bill.
Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s team then warned it would be ‘legally impossible’ to make Britain pay for farm subsidies after leaving the EU in March 2019 based on current European law in force and not subject to change.
Attorneys at the meeting made it clear to the Commission that it would be legally impossible to defend the idea that the entire seven-year budget plan was a binding commitment upon the UK, and that insisting the UK pay after Brexit would give them an excuse to not pay in and of itself.
Relations between the United Kingdom and the EU are at an all-time low after a disaterous meeting between Jean-Claude Juncker and Theresa May recently. Following talks at Downing Street, Juncker accused the PM of being ‘deluded’ and ‘in another galaxy’. Prime Minister May simply stated no deal is better than a bad deal.