Speaker 1: Tomorrow in Brussels, Sir Tim Barrow, the UK's representative there,
Speaker 1: will hand deliver a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk.
Speaker 1: It will declare that Brexit has begun and it will
Speaker 1: open a two year negotiation window over the terms of
Speaker 1: the withdrawal. The letter could also set the tone for
Speaker 1: what could be rather contentious talks in January. May warn
Speaker 1: the EU that quote no deal for Britain is better
Speaker 1: than a bad deal. Whether us to discuss what we
Speaker 1: should be looking for tomorrow and in the coming months
Speaker 1: is Katherine Bernhard, Professor at the University of Cambridge School
Speaker 1: of Law. Katherine, thank you for joining us um tell
Speaker 1: us what we know about what this letter will say,
Speaker 1: and perhaps more importantly, what what don't we know yet? Well,
Speaker 1: actually we don't know a great deal, with the content
Speaker 1: of the letters being kept secret, but it's thought likely
Speaker 1: to contain more than the simple words we're off. It's
Speaker 1: thought likely to contain some of the UK's negotiating position,
Speaker 1: what it would like to get out of the negotiations
Speaker 1: with the European Union. But that's pretty much all we
Speaker 1: do know. But what we from the Article fifty itself
Speaker 1: is Tomorrow will be the day that Article fifty gets triggered,
Speaker 1: and that starts the clock ticking, and the clock will
Speaker 1: run down till the end of the two year period,
Speaker 1: which will take us toy of March nineteen, and the
Speaker 1: UK will be out of the European Union on the
Speaker 1: twenty March. Katherine, there is only a draft of the
Speaker 1: e USE negotiating guidelines. When will that be finalized? And
Speaker 1: as the UK have any say in that? No, the
Speaker 1: UK won't have any say. It's for the European Council,
Speaker 1: which is the heads of state of the other twenty
Speaker 1: seven member states. It's likely that the guidelines guidelines will
Speaker 1: be available quite soon. Um, they've already, as you say,
Speaker 1: being drafted. And what happens next is that these guidelines
Speaker 1: will be discussed by the seven. There's going to be
Speaker 1: a summit in June where the UK and the EU
Speaker 1: will meet to negotiate how to negotiate, and then the
Speaker 1: substantive negotiations themselves won't start until the end of September seventeen,
Speaker 1: So in fact there's going to be a rather quiet
Speaker 1: period um, at least publicly them no doubt, will be
Speaker 1: discussions going on behind the scenes, but there'll be a
Speaker 1: quiet period because the USE made it clear that no
Speaker 1: negotiations will occur until after the French elections, and the
Speaker 1: French elections are end of April. Startup, May, Catherine, What
Speaker 1: don't we think or what do you think that Theresa
Speaker 1: May is going to be pushing for in particular when
Speaker 1: these talks began, Well, there are two separate issues. One
Speaker 1: is the question of the divorce, which is covered by
Speaker 1: Article fifty, and then the second issue is the future
Speaker 1: deal between the UK and the EU. Now, Theresa May
Speaker 1: and her government want the two issues to be negotiated simultaneously. However,
Speaker 1: the EU says they should be done sequentially, and the
Speaker 1: law tends to favor the EUS position because strictly speaking,
Speaker 1: any future deal that the UK entered into cannot be
Speaker 1: negotiated until it's a third country. A third country is
Speaker 1: EU jargon for not being a member state of the EU.
Speaker 1: And of course, if there was goodwill on both sides,
Speaker 1: it would be perfect perfectly possible for a degree of
Speaker 1: simultane its simultaneity either two being negotiated at the same time.
Speaker 1: But the moment the EU is holding hard and saying
Speaker 1: divorce first, then future deal does the EU have the
Speaker 1: stronger hand here, Yes, because the EU knows that once
Speaker 1: Article fifty has been triggered, the clock will start running
Speaker 1: down and therefore the power very much shifts to the EU.
Speaker 1: That if the EU doesn't cooperate and takes things that
Speaker 1: have very leisurely paced, eventually there will be a rush
Speaker 1: up until the end of the two year period to
Speaker 1: get some sort of deal. And in anticipation of this,
Speaker 1: Theresa May has said that no deal is better than
Speaker 1: a bad deal, and that's because she doesn't want to
Speaker 1: be essentially having a metaphorical gun held off against her
Speaker 1: head come March, being forced to sign a deal which
Speaker 1: is not in the UK's interest. But the way Article
Speaker 1: fifty structure is very much puts the boot on the
Speaker 1: EU's foot. Kather, we only have about thirty seconds, but
Speaker 1: maybe you can tell ask what will the euse priorities
Speaker 1: be in these stocks money money number one? And sorting
Speaker 1: out the rights of EU citizens in the UK and
Speaker 1: British citizens in the EU number two. Okay, I want
Speaker 1: to thank our guest Katherine Barner, and she's a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Cambridge School of Law, filling us
Speaker 1: in on the latest developments on Brexit and explaining to
Speaker 1: us what might be coming next. It sounds like we
Speaker 1: are going to be quite fixated on Brexit and the
Speaker 1: negotiation process over the next couple of years, because when
Speaker 1: Theresa May's representative delivers that letter tomorrow, that will trigger
Speaker 1: a two year window for negotiations with the EU on
Speaker 1: exactly how it's gonna look when Britain exits the EU. Okay,
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