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France plans for the “worst” over Brexit: minister
CALAIS, France, Oct 3, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – France is planning “for the worst” over Brexit, Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin warned Tuesday, adding that hundreds more customs officers will be deployed at Channel ports.
“We must prepare for a ‘hard’ Brexit, that is to say one without a legal framework with our English friends,” he told reporters amid tense negotiations between London and the 27 other members of the European Union.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen and that’s why we have to plan for the worst,” he said following a Brexit meeting with local officials in the northern port city of Calais.
“In any case, that’s the hypothesis the prime minister has asked me to work with.”
In November the French government will present parliament with a draft law drawn up on the basis of a no-deal Brexit, an official source told AFP Tuesday.
This bill to be presented to cabinet on Wednesday by France’s Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau will deal with the string of legal and administrative issues which a hard Brexit would throw up, the government source said.
The list of potential problems is “a veritable Himalaya”, the source added.
Among these is the fate of French nationals living in Britain and of Britons living in France.
Even Eurostar train drivers, who currently use a European licence, could be caught in a Kafkaesque situation.
– ‘Hoping never to use it’ –
“It’s one of those rare legal projects that one undertakes hoping never to use it,” a French ministerial source said.
EU Council President Donald Tusk said late last month that he remains “convinced that a compromise, good for all, is still possible” after the EU roundly rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan at a summit in Salzburg, Austria.
Darmanin, who is also responsible for customs, said a no-deal Brexit would be problematic both for the EU and for France because of the amount of trade conducted with Britain through Channels ports and through the tunnel.
He confirmed that some 700 extra customs officers would be deployed over the next three years at Channel entry points.
New scanners will be brought in, notably to examine the content of goods trains travelling through the Channel tunnel, he said.
France is also looking at the possibility of setting up special customs zones for trucks near Calais to avoid traffic jams at the port or the entrance to the tunnel.
London and Brussels are supposed to reach agreement on Brexit terms before an EU summit on October 18 and 19.
This would allow for a transition period rather than a brutal withdrawal of Britain from the EU in March next year.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:45 hrs