In an open letter initiated by the British Chamber of Industry (CBI) on 18th September 2017, 100 British companies demand an interim solution for Brexit over a period of three years after Brexit in 2019 in order to protect jobs both in the UK and in the EU. Obviously, the UK companies do not believe that an orderly Brexit can be negotiated within the set time frame. Nor do most of the observers of the current Brexit negotiations. For very good reasons, British industry is already afraid of the consequences for the jobs of EU foreigners both in the UK and Continental Europe. In reality, there is more at stake for the UK than there is for the much bigger EU. This desperate appeal of British companies faces the demand of EU negotiators to settle the exit principles first before negotiating any future relationship including job protection.
It is time to cut the Gordian knot on both sides of the negotiating table. Boris Johnson’s idea that the UK can walk away from the costly consequences of Brexit is just as illusionary as is the EU negotiator’s position to rigidly stick to the Brexit Agenda of past and future. We live in the presence which combines both the past and the future as Michael Ende’s book ‘Momo’ so convincingly describes. Those political forces in the UK which believe that the British Commonwealth and revived individual economic relations with major industrial nations such as the US and Japan or Canada can compensate for the loss of political and economic ties with Continental Europe are either hopelessly romantic or deliberately drunk. It is time for a round of soda water.
Bertrand Prell
Rechtsanwalt & Solicitor
