(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. signaled it's preparing to compromise over money in its stand-off with the European Union, as a new round of Brexit talks offered the chance to break the deadlock.
The deal on the divorce terms will probably be better for the remaining 27 EU countries than for Britain on the financial settlement, Brexit Secretary David Davis said on Tuesday. The first opportunity for negotiations to resume will be Nov. 9 for a two-day session, according to a joint statement by the U.K. government and the European Commission.
Read more about what Davis told a panel of lawmakers on Brexit
“The withdrawal agreement, on balance, will probably favor the union in terms of things like money and so on,” Davis told lawmakers in London. “Whereas the future relationship will favor both sides and will be important to both of us.”
The divorce bill is the main sticking point in talks. The EU won't allow negotiations to move on until an agreement is reached, while the U.K. side has been reluctant to show its hand, partly because the issue is so divisive at home. Voters were promised that Brexit would bring dividends rather than bills, and some prominent members of the ruling Conservative Party oppose the idea of paying anything at all.
Unblocking talks is urgent: the U.K. team wants negotiations to move on to the future trading relationship and a two-year transition phase before the end of the year. Otherwise, it faces the growing risk of tumbling out of the bloc with no deal at the March 2019 deadline.
Prime Minister Theresa May and three key Brexit-backing ministers -- Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Environment Secretary Michael Gove and Trade Secretary Liam Fox -- will answer questions in parliament on Wednesday.
Accelerate
May's government wanted to resume talks this week but the EU could not fit a new round of talks into its schedule, Davis said on Tuesday. “We want to strategically accelerate the process,” he told the House of Lords EU committee. “We are not holding up the process.”
Davis's comments to lawmakers came after the EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, said he's ready to step up the pace as the window of opportunity for trade talks this year closes.
“I'm ready to speed up negotiations,” Barnier told reporters in the Slovak capital Bratislava on Tuesday. “We have proposed three dates, three weeks of new rounds of negotiations. In the next few hours or days, we're working with the British delegation to find the right dates.”
Almost two weeks after German Chancellor Angela Merkel's warm words at an October summit, concern was mounting that no date had been fixed for policy negotiations to resume, with confusion on both sides as to where the other stands and contingency planning well underway.
In London, the focus of Cabinet discussions on Tuesday was on the planning for leaving rather than getting a deal from smooth separation. The government said that almost 3,000 new civil-servant jobs have been created in support of Brexit, with plans to recruit as many as 5,000 new staff next year. There are 400,000 civil servants in total.
What's Happening?
The EU is puzzled by the U.K.'s approach in the negotiations, according to a senior official from a core European government. The U.K. has brought no new elements to the table, that would allow to settle the separation bill, the official said, asking not to be named.
Even though the EU welcomed May's Florence speech in September, in which the British premier promised to honor the U.K's liabilities stemming from its membership in the bloc, the EU wants the commitments spelled out in detail in a binding document, the European official said.
The British government has so far been resisting such calls, insisting instead that the exact methodology for calculating the bill can only be agreed once the future trade relationship is also discussed and agreed. Meanwhile Davis has proposed moving the talks away from the current pattern of four-day sessions held once a month in Brussels. The British side has also engaged in some shuttle diplomacy, with both Davis and Johnson visiting Paris last week.
Apart from the exit bill, the EU says that it still needs more clarifications from the U.K. on the role of the European Court of Justice in guaranteeing the rights of citizens stemming from the withdrawal agreement, and it still waits for concrete proposals from London on how to avoid a hard border in Ireland.
--With assistance from Thomas Penny Helene Fouquet Robert Hutton Alex Morales and Radoslav Tomek
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Ross in London at tross54@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Eddie Buckle
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
Essential Business Intelligence, Sharp Market Insights, Practical Personal Finance Advice, Daily Fuel, Gold and Silver Prices and Latest Stories — On NDTV Profit.
