UK: Gov to EU payments without Brexit deal

Britain could potentially withhold some payments to the European Union if a deal to help the country leave the bloc doesn’t happen before next year.

As part of a Brexit transition deal, Britain is set to pay the EU between €35 and €39 billion (US$41-US$46 billion) over the coming decades. The country is due to leave the bloc in March 2019.

But Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab on Wednesday, August 29, told members of Britain’s upper house of Parliament that not all of the payments were a legal obligation, and that the country could actually delay sending funds without a deal.

“I don’t think it could be safely assumed on anyone’s side that the financial settlement that has been agreed [on] as part of the withdrawal bill would then just be paid, in precisely the same shape or speed or rate, if there was no deal,” he said, according to Reuters.

Last month, Brussels rejected the UK’s proposals on how to govern London’s access to the European market after Brexit, saying that British Prime Minister Theresa May’s latest plan would take away the EU’s “decision-making autonomy.”

The UK government had published a 98-page whitepaper that detailed plans for an enhanced “equivalence” model, which would build on an existing system that countries like the US and Singapore use to simplify their access to the bloc.

Full Content: Reuters