Chief EU negotiator tells UK to let souped-up data adequacy dream die The European Union's chief Brexit negotiator has poured cold water on the UK's dreams of a special deal on data adequacy* after it leaves the bloc. In a speech given over the weekend, Michel Barnier said that the UK "needs to face up to the reality of Brexit" and the way the EU's decision-making systems work. The UK has …
...the more I conclude that it is the EU itself that is trying to have its cake and eat it.
The situation being faced is unprecedented, and their insistance on all or nothing, is an impractical approach when there are so many joint programmes still running. If anyone is being inflexible, then to my mind, it is the EU, while at the same time making it look like they are being utterly fair in not allowing a "third country" into the sphere.
That's one of the problems with the world today... it's gone all binary, when the true, honest path, is somewhere in between.
For the record, I was a remain voter until I heard Junker start talking after the vote. The more he talks, the more I conclude that the EU has strayed far off its political course and the project needs to be reset.
The legal foundation of the system is based on EU Court of justice having the ultimate authority.
Uk is asking this to be specifically dismantled solely in its favor and replaced by something fuzzy to serve its interests. Why should the EU agree? Doubly so considering that other non-members like the eea, Serbia, etc agree to the jurisdiction without throwing toys out of the pram.
Err no. In what candy coloured fantasy universe of unicorns and rainbows would it be acceptable to quit something and still be a part of it? If you quit a club you can't still take advantage of member benefits. This is just another example of the UK government sticking its head in the sand and singing "lalala I can't hear you" to itself while the adults look on in bemusement.
@iron - the candy coloured universe where the EU says, "Yes, we'll trade with you, but if you want to do that, you run your country according to our laws, and you trade with who we tell you to trade with, on the terms we negotiate." ... simplistic, in order to make the point.
The fact that we're still in the EU and our representatives have been jaunting all over the place, making deals, leads me to the conclusion that the average Joe is being fed a load of crap, does nothing to aid clarity.
"I think its more that the EU has baked its cake, is enjoying eating its cake. The UK wants it to change the recipe to something less palatable."
It's only palatable to the EU politicians... who have been changing the recipe in their favour for many years. Now those further down the food chain, don't like how it tastes - "Six More Countries Want Referendums to Exit EU" - https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/europes-current-economy/five-more-countries-want-referendums-to-exit-eu/
As for believing my statement.... I voted remain ... fact.... if we faced the same vote again, I would vote leave.
"British ‘deserters’ will not be welcomed back into Europe – European Commission president " - https://www.rt.com/uk/343796-british-deserters-brexit-juncker/
"Jean-Claude Juncker: UK faces hefty Brexit bill" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39042876
I have seen no article where Juncker compained that he had been misquoted, or otherwise challenged these reports... so I have to conclude that he meant what he said.
...and he spoke in French in Italy, where English is spoken twice as much as French, to make his point...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Oc2JIn8No
The EU is a worthwhile project. The way it is currently run, however, is not.
>Like the ex-colleague who complained when I spoke French to the delegation from our Brussels head office over lunch.
That sums up brexit Britain for me.
Really? How petty (a word with interesting etymology in the circumstances). How do you react to the criticism that Président Macron received from the French a few weeks ago when he dared to make a speech in English (which he speaks well), instead of using French and an interpreter? Is that not even more parochial?
Like the ex-colleague who complained when I spoke French to the delegation from our Brussels head office over lunch.
Surely that depends on the circumstances? If your Brussels colleagues are comfortable in English and your ex-colleague doesn't speak French, then switching the conversation to French would be impolite and at best could be seen as an attempt to exclude him. On the other hand, if the Brussels folks have little English, trying to make them feel welcome would be appreciated and your ex-colleague should have accepted that.
@msknight: "The EU is a worthwhile project. The way it is currently run, however, is not."
The EU is not a worthwhile project and not what we voted for in the first place, a Common Market, they can stuff the rest. I recall recently where the French President complained about the UK not totally opening Calais and taking 'our' refugees. What has any of this got to do with free trade - answer nothing. Two things that swayed the Brexit vote, arrogance on behalf of EU commissars and the economic migrant/refugee crisis.
@Walter Bishop - re @msknight's comment: As a fervent remain voter, I have upvoted you, because you are perfectly correct: E~U arrogance (esp, German and Juncker) and the immigrant issues had a lot to do with why people voted leave. I just think that they should not have been the overriding issues.
"EU itself that is trying to have its cake and eat it."
Actually, considering the UK is the one asking for stuff, I think they are being pretty restrained.
We threw our toys out of the pram and expected to be treated with respect whilst simultaneously allowing Farage to open his mouth for our side and having a negotiation team who have treated the job as just a fully expense'd city-break without having to do any actual work.
The more I think of it the more obvious it is that this is all be design.
After all the people implementing "Brexit" for the UK
1) all voted to remain
2) went to school (had the minimum levels f education required)
3) have a lot to loose in the suicidal jump to being a small island with no power in the world.
In other news, what would we say to some outsider demanding a say in how we govern ourselves? Would we even bother to reply to them?
it's gone all binary
No, it was always binary. It's the Johnsons, Goves, Rees-Moggs and Murdochs of the world that spread the fantasy of a third way.
What you have to realise is that there are treaties in place - complex meshing treaties that have developed over the life of the EU. Given sufficient time and sufficient will, it might be possible to painstakingly renegotiate those treaties and then get them re-ratified through every country's federal and state legislatures. But there isn't the time (we leave in March) and there is unlikely to be the will since the other member states don't really get enough out of it.
It might well be possible to find a more rational settlement starting with a blank piece of paper and an infinite amount of time, but we start from where we are and have to end when the clock expires and Barnier is quite correct that the only way this is going to happen is if the EU can cut and paste an existing arrangement for the UK. There will be no bespoke deal, there cannot be a bespoke deal.
The UK started the clock without any idea what sort of outcome it wanted: it's not really the fault of the EU that last orders have been called for the Table d'Hote dinner menu while the UK is still hankering after the a la Carte lunch.
And frankly, the EU is now considerably more bothered about Italy than it cares about the UK.
And frankly, the EU is now considerably more bothered about Italy than it cares about the UK.
And rightly so, Brexit is only a risk for the EU if it's successful long-term, Italy could bring the eurozone crashing down in a matter of months.
What's the €/popcorn rate these days?
True, but since they haven't done so by now the chances of it happening are practically zero.
Since the Leave result the £ is work 8.7% less against the Euro than it was.
Recruiting of NHS nurses in foreign countries dropped 92%. People seem to think they are not welcome in the UK, and at least 52% of the UK population who voted agree with them*
But the ship of fools will sail on.
*What's that you say? You didn't mean the nurses? What did you think "Brexit means Brexit" meant exactly?
Recruiting of NHS nurses in foreign countries dropped 92%.
Not quite. Recruitment from EU countries (foreign? surely not!) dropped by 96% in the year after the Brexit vote (almost 1000 fewer candidates), hardly surprising given the initial uncertainty over residence status, but EU citizens make up only a small proportion of UK nursing staff. Most non-UK nursing staff come from the Philippines (20,000+), with many others from India and the Caribbean where they don't have a language problem coming to the UK. Recruiting nurses has been problematic for years, just due to costs. It's hard to live in London on a nurse's salary, no matter where you come from.
>Most non-UK nursing staff come from the Philippines (20,000+),
Please stop exaggerating statistics to make your point. Most non-UK nursing staff originate from India, with the Philippines in 2nd with 15,391 (https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7783#fullreport).
Irish is 3rd, and a number of EU countries make up most of the top 10 countries of origin for NHS staff.
Please stop exaggerating statistics to make your point. Most non-UK nursing staff originate from India, with the Philippines in 2nd with 15,391
The report you quote is for "NHS staff" in general, which includes everyone from Doctors to Janitors, not just nurses.
I took my figures from a BBC report that quotes the "nursing and midwifery council" which presumably has accurate figures for nurses. From their graph ~23000 from the Philippines, ~16000 from India
>>Please stop exaggerating statistics to make your point. Most non-UK nursing staff originate from India, with the Philippines in 2nd with 15,391
>The report you quote is for "NHS staff" in general, which includes everyone from Doctors to Janitors, not just nurses.
>I took my figures from a BBC report that quotes the "nursing and midwifery council" which presumably has accurate figures for nurses. From their graph ~23000 from the Philippines, ~16000 from India
So, the NHS employers only 15,391 people that originate from the Philippines (as per the official government report I linked to), but there are 23,000 nurses in the UK from the Philippines?
Perhaps there are ~7,000 Filipino nurses in private employment (or possibly bank/agency nurses), but it appears you are 50% out.
@ Phil O'Sophical
I hate to point this out, but that post of yours appears to make your argument even less valid.
You claim that the number quoting 15,391 members of NHS staff covers all workers from the Philippines within the NHS, your words being "The report you quote is for "NHS staff" in general, which includes everyone from Doctors to Janitors, not just nurses." At no point do you refute this data as being inaccurate.
You then go on to claim your figures are correct citing an unlinked BBC report, which claims there to be ~23,000 nurses from the Philippines.
As you didn't claim the other persons figures to be inaccurate, in fact you went out of your way to claim they just represent different data, I cannot see how 15,391 NHS workers from the Philippines across all jobs, can suddenly jump to 23,000 nurses from the Philippines.
Surely, there must be LESS nurses because we assume at least one person from the Philipines is not working as a nurse/midwife. That would give us a maximum potential of 15,390 nurses from the Philippines.
Do you see my struggle?
It would help if the EU would face up to that, too, and stop trying to punish the UK for having the temerity to vote wrong.
If one thing is more clear than anything here, it's that Barnier himself doesn't believe Brexit will happen. He thinks Britain will pull back at the last moment. Merkel, Macron, Juncker and others have been at pains to make it clear that's still an option, and frankly it's the one they expect to happen. I'm not sure about May - I think it's her preferred option, but she's increasingly coming to the realisation that it won't, which is why she looks so disheartened.
The trouble is that as long as everyone is labouring under that misapprehension, they're not treating the negotiations as "real". All this is just for show, it will only work if Brexit doesn't happen. There is, as far as I can tell, no contingency in place for the plan going wrong - just like there wasn't before the referendum.
It's really time to do something about that, because the current plan - to bluff and intimidate the British public into, by some far-from-clear means, pulling the plug on the whole thing - shows every sign of going truly appallingly wrong.
@veti
>It would help if the EU would face up to that, too, and stop trying to punish the UK for having the temerity to vote wrong.
Pushing every advantage you have when negotiating may feel like punishment from the perspective of the weaker party but it's just the way the world works (the real world, not the one populated by unicorns dancing on rainbows).
Just wait until the UK is trying to negotiate a trade deal with the US. That relationship is going to feel like a really special kind of punishment then.
Just wait until the UK is trying to negotiate a trade deal with the US. That relationship is going to feel like a really special kind of punishment then.
We already have an example of UK incompetence wrt to the US in the 2003 US-UK Extradition Treaty: its negotiation, ratification and then blind adherence to it...
"Since the Leave result the £ is work 8.7% less against the Euro than it was."
So great for exports then. And why the FTSE has been at record highs.
"Recruiting of NHS nurses in foreign countries dropped 92%"
You mean that they might actually have to pay our nurses enough to be able to recruit more of them?
...the more I conclude that it is the EU itself that is trying to have its cake and eat it.
Seems so. Barnier's comment that "This autonomy allows us to set standards for the whole of the EU, but also to see these standards being replicated around the world." is practically American in its arrogance: "We'll set the standards alone, and we expect everyone else to adopt them".
I do have to admit that Sturgeon was performing top notch politics. Standing up for Scotlands interests in the negotiations in parliament (rightfully so) and thus being part of the cause of delays as the UK decides on what it asks from the EU... and then hopping over to the EU and criticising the UK for not getting on with the job. "Poli" latin for Many ... "Ticks" blood sucking creatures. ... I love that quote.
I do have to admit that Sturgeon was performing top notch politics.
Absolutely. It's truly impressive how she manages to spin "Scotland is better off out of the UK" and "The UK is worse off out of the EU" as both being right for the same reasons. You can tell she studied Law, and not something like Logical Analysis.
@Phil O'Sophical:
"Scotland is better off out of the UK" has no contradiction with "The UK is worse off out of the EU", if Scotland is *in* the EU, and the UK is out.
Makes more sense than "Scotland is better off in the UK" and "The UK is better off out of the EU"
"Scotland is better off out of the UK" has no contradiction with "The UK is worse off out of the EU", if Scotland is *in* the EU, and the UK is out.
Except that the EU leaders have been consistently clear that if Scotland leaves the UK it leaves the EU, and if the UK leaves the EU then all of it does, so there is no situation where Scotland is in the EU and the UK is out, unless Scotland declares independence post-Brexit and applies to join the EU, Schengen, Eurozone and all.
@ Phil O'Sophical
I don't think your "Logical Analysis" is all that good at all, She and SNP, the Scottish National Party are for an independent Scotland. She was for remain regarding the EU referendum like most of Scotland. She has been straightforward regarding independence and the EU all the time. Who knows, Scotland might fit in with the Nordic countries very well.
"Absolutely. It's truly impressive how she manages to spin "Scotland is better off out of the UK" and "The UK is worse off out of the EU" as both being right for the same reasons. You can tell she studied Law, and not something like Logical Analysis."
Is it any different to brexitter/tory logic, which is that the union is bad, if it is European, but good, if it's the UK? I mean, the UK actually has far more autonomy and power within the EU, than Scotland does within the UK, not least because unlike the EU, where no country is more than 20% of the population, England is 80% of the UK, so its voters can pretty much determine what happens, regardless of what the non-English vote for. Brexit being a case in point.
Is it any different to brexitter/tory logic, which is that the union is bad, if it is European, but good, if it's the UK?
Not the same at all. Scotland wants to leave the union of the UK, because it thinks it will be better alone. That's exactly the Brexit leaver position in the EU, yet for Sturgeon Scotland is right to think that, and the UK is wrong. That's contradictory.
I mean, the UK actually has far more autonomy and power within the EU, than Scotland does within the UK, not least because unlike the EU, where no country is more than 20% of the population, England is 80% of the UK, so its voters can pretty much determine what happens
That makes little sense. Scotland actually has far more power in the UK because it's MPs may hold the balance of power in Westminister. The UK has no such similar power in the EU. You're quite correct that Scots dislike the way that English voters can pretty much determine what happens, which is the same argumen used by leavers as regards the UK within Europe, the EU gets to decide what happens & the UK has little say in it.
Seems so. Barnier's comment that "This autonomy allows us to set standards for the whole of the EU, but also to see these standards being replicated around the world." is practically American in its arrogance: "We'll set the standards alone, and we expect everyone else to adopt them".
This belies a fundamental lack of understanding (or deliberate misrepresentation) of what Barnier is saying. The EU has (pretty good) regulations about how member states can allow personal data to be used (see GDPR). These sit on the basic tenet that an individuals data belongs to them, and they choose who gets access to it and for what purpose. Part of this is to not allow personal data to be passed to third countries unless they have similar regulations to protect that data.
For example, an insurance company operating in France cannot collect the information about you it needs in order to insure your car and then pass that information onto a data processing company based in a country where it could be sold on for profit (for example, countries where an individual has no rights to such data like North Korea, Russia, or the US). This is all perfectly logical.
'Adequacy' in this sense is simply a way of saying, "your regulations are good enough". What UK.gov is trying to do is get itself into a situation where it doesn't have to worry about being declared 'adequate', and still be involved in that decision-making process, despite not being part of the EU and not being under the jurisdiction of the ECJ, which is the governing body for making sure people adhere to those regulations. A cynic would suggest that May specifically wants this because otherwise there would be no way we would get the adequacy rating without her having to give up her data-collection fetishism, which blatantly breaches the whole concept of an individual owning the data about them.
What Barnier is saying, in short, is that if other countries want to play with EU data, they have to do it according to EU rules. The EU isn't trying to make other countries follow the rules for their own citizens, although the up-shot is that if a country were to say that they protect the data of EU citizens, and not their own citizens, then there would be political pressure from within their own country to adopt the same protections for everyone.
Just because the EU are the first bloc to adopt such regulations doesn't mean that they are being arrogant, in the way that the US tries to project its laws overseas.
Of course, this is only a problem for countries which don't accept that individuals have the right to control their own personal information. You do agree that this is a good thing, right? Because otherwise, you would be advocating a situation where either the state, or the rich and powerful directly control the personal information of individuals. One of those options sounds like Stalinism to me, whilst the other sounds like fascism. Feel free to disagree, but both of those ideologies have been shown to be somewhat flawed by history (unless you're a fan of mass murder).
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