Will the Unity of the 27 Crack?

This policy brief argues that the EU will continue to stick together during the Brexit trade negotiations. The UK will not be offered a ‘sweetheart deal’. The only way for Britain to maintain a comparable level of single market access to that which it enjoys today would be for Theresa May to soften her red lines and accept the accompanying overarching obligations. If she is unwilling to do so the UK should expect little more than a basic free trade agreement (FTA), which at its most ambitious would be of similar depth and scope to the early European visions of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the ill-fated EU-US free trade agreement.

• Primary Source

ESO: Background information: PM speech on our future economic partnership with the European Union http://www.europeansources.info/record/pm-speech-on-our-future-economic-partnership-with-the-european-union/

Blog: Federal Trust, 03.03.18: Is Brexit worth it, Prime Minister? http://fedtrust.co.uk/is-brexit-worth-it-prime-minister/

Blog: Politics.co.uk, 02.03.18: The snowed-in speech: May pedals furiously down a dead end http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/03/02/the-snowed-in-speech-may-pedals-furiously-down-a-dead-end

Carnegie Europe: Strategic Europe, 12.03.18: Brexit: Promising the Impossible http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/75765?lang=en

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