BREXIT – UK’s proposal for backstop doesn’t correspond to EU’s wishes

The U.K’s proposal for a “backstop” solution to Ireland “doesn’t correspond” to the EU’s wishes, Barnier said on Friday, adding that May had agreed on the need for it, and “there is no way we will go backwards.” Barnier said he would discuss the plan with Davis on Monday morning when the two meet for talks in Brussels.

“Backstop means backstop,” the EU’s chief negotiator told a press conference in Brussels, as he insisted the UK needed to be pragmatic and accept that Northern Ireland would have to be treated differently to the rest of the country, with checks taking place on goods travelling across the Irish Sea.

His remarks are the first substantial reaction to the U.K.’s alternative backstop proposal to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland if negotiators fail to reach agreement.

Barnier raised a catalogue of objections to the British proposal, questioning whether the U.K.’s idea to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland would work because it is time limited — a key stipulation from Davis.

He detected, he said, a sense of of nostalgia among some British negotiators for the privileges of EU membership, but the bloc had been clear that it was not willing to grant “à la carte” single market access.

“Sometimes I sense in those proposals some sort of nostalgia at the moment of leaving the European Union, since you want to stay everywhere without ever again respecting the regulatory framework,” Barnier said, saying UK ministers including Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, had put forward “all sorts of proposals that surprise us, that appear paradoxical.”

“We respect Britain’s red lines. I’d wish the British would respect their own red lines too.”