The U.K. crashing out of the EU without a Brexit deal could create “bitterness between nations,” with “British-bashing in France and French-bashing or European-bashing in London,” warned France’s Europe Minister Nathalie Loiseau.
“We definitely want to protect our close relationship with the U.K. and I would not like to see a no-deal Brexit creating bitterness, anger or hostility,” Loiseau told the Guardian in an interview published Thursday. “We have exercised a lot of patience, but our public opinion is asking questions.”
Loiseau, who is in London for a joint congress of French and British mayors and will meet U.K. Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay and his Labour Party opposite number Keir Starmer, said that while the French “fully remember what we owed the U.K. during the two World Wars,” a no-deal Brexit could undermine goodwill.
Speaking separately to the BBC’s Today program Thursday morning, Loiseau said the EU has “done everything on earth to provide for a smooth Brexit,” but if the British parliament decides to leave the bloc without a deal, “well then no hard feelings.”
BuzzFeed reported Wednesday that U.K. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox put forward two ideas to break the deadlock during his crunch meeting with the EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels Tuesday evening. One was reportedly to extend the scope of the Withdrawal Agreement’s “arbitration panel,” allowing it to rule on whether both sides are acting fairly in their efforts to cut a future trade deal — and offer the U.K. a way out of the Irish backstop if they are not. The other is a so-called mini backstop — a watered-down version of the original, which would “limit the mechanism to only cover elements that relate to border infrastructure.” According to the report, Barnier rejected both the ideas.
Asked about whether the EU would accept alternative arrangements to the Withdrawal Agreement proposed by the U.K., Loiseau said: “There were no precise proposals. There were ideas.”