After the chaotic uncertainty of Johnson and Truss, EU leaders found in Rishi Sunak a British prime minister they could do business with, write Pat Leahy and Naomi O'Leary.
Work began in earnest in the weeks before Christmas, as an EU team of top envoys, customs officials and regulatory experts met their UK counterparts in an unassuming European Commission office building on a side street in Brussels’ European quarter.
Industry sources, like supermarket chains, were quietly sounded out on the feasibility of solutions such as putting labels on products reading “Not for EU”. For the EU, this was crucial to win over those sceptical about the idea of looser checks – in particular, the hardest-to-please member state, France. Paris had been enraged by British noncompliance with the prior deal and has long pushed for tougher enforcement to protect its agriculture industry from the risk of diseases entering the Single Market through the Northern Irish back door. The commission could now reassure France it had oversight of what was coming in.
Other interventions were similarly unwelcome. When Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, whose relationships with unionists were difficult throughout the long Brexit negotiation period in 2017-19, said that perhaps the protocol had been “too strict”, it was viewed in Brussels as deeply unwelcome.But by early February it was already clear that a deal could arrive any time.
In London, there was a full-scale pushback from hardline Eurosceptics in Sunak’s Conservative Party who had woken up to the impending agreement and were fearful that Sunak was going to sell out. “Settlement” was attractive, but unfortunately this had been used for David Cameron’s ill-fated ‘New Settlement’ with the EU, just before the Brexit referendum.
Last Sunday evening the British government and European Commission jointly announced that von der Leyen would travel to London to meet Sunak the next day. This was the signal to all observers that the deal was on.
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