What amount do you think the UK should settle with the EU?

[kingfisher]

What amount do you think the UK should settle with the EU?

As Britain leaves the EU, what do you think is a fair settlement, and at what stage of the negotiations should it be paid?

[smudger]

Hhhmmmm, difficult one Kingfisher, pretty hard not to say a big fat zero!

Appreciate there are commitments to which UK may have signed up, but equally there are €millions, if nit €zillions to which the UK has been a net contributor, so why should UK pay a settlement on exiting???

[Royal]

We should pay what we owe - nothing more, nothing less.

We have ex-Commissioners, MEPs and civil servants from the UK who are either currently getting a pension or will be entitled to one when Brexit is final. It is right that we should pay towards those pensions (as much as it galls me to see the likes of Kinnock, Patten and Mandelson with their snouts in the collective trough). However, we need to maintain the moral high ground and pay what we owe to our Creditors. That is almost certainly nowhere near what what the Eurocrats are telling us we owe. The figure of £50bn being bandied about represents about 5 years net contributions. That is simply ridiculous and demonstrates their attitude towards us as a cash cow. We have always paid in more to the EEC/EU than we have received. Surely in a divorce settlement, the assets should be taken into account as well as the liabilities?

If push comes to shove however, and the negotiations carry on in the belligerent way that the Europhiles have started them, I would fully support turning our back 'on the whole damned lot of them'.

[kingfisher]

Lloyd- as you say, none of us have any idea of the sums actually involved- indeed it came as something of a surprise to me that we would be presented with a bill at all,(before anything further could be discussed by the EU), considering our forty years plus as a net contributor. The general principle of the EU stance on this was what I was wondering about.

[ApusApus]

One thing's for the sure, the other 27 member states hold all the aces

Can I play poker with you sometime?


Shane

[Jimgym]

One thing's for the sure, the other 27 member states hold all the aces

Can I play poker with you sometime?


Shane

[Royal]

You clearly haven't thought this through. What you are suggesting is effectively a 'hard' Brexit. I know of no informed opinion which considers that a hard Brexit will be a good - or even a viable - option.

Here we go again - 'informed opinion'. Just because my opinion differs from yours does not mean that I have not thought it through nor that it is uninformed. The rhetoric from the EU since June last year has constantly maintained that we could not stay in the Single Market without the 'Four Freedoms' which means that the start point for negotiations is we carry on paying into the EU coffers, we continue to allow unfettered movement into the UK and we have no say after Brexit is completed. This is NOT what the majority voted for last Summer. I am all for retaining access to the Single Market, but not at any cost. It is the EU which thus far has set the belligerent tone and effectively quashed any soft Brexit option. We will see. What is clear to me is that as Theresa May has said "No deal is better than a bad deal". Tim Farron and others have effectively said the opposite and that they would rather have a bad deal than no deal.

Where do you, Lloyd, stand on this one simple question?

...the UK will essentially have to pay whatever exit price is demanded of it, failing which it will pay a much heavier price in trade terms and loss of access to the European market.

That's called blackmail on their part, Lloyd. Rarely have I ever come across such a defeatist attitude as yours - thank goodness we don't have anyone on our negotiating team with the same leanings as you. If the currently stated exit price of £50bn (which has been plucked out of thin air) were doubled, trebled or quadrupled - you advocate just paying it rather than insist on a detailed breakdown of what we owe and why? I am all for paying what we owe, but just like checking out of a hotel, I want a breakdown of what I'm being asked to pay and of course retain the right to challenge items on the bill where necessary.

One thing's for the sure, the other 27 member states hold all the aces, as I have said all along. The EU has made it abundantly clear that they will not negotiate the UK's trade terms until a settlement figure is agreed, along with the rights of EU citizens living and working in the UK, plus the NI issue.

I see little evidence of dissent among the 27 member states, which will make for a formidable negotiation process on the part of the UK.

No, no and thrice no.

They do not hold all the aces.

Once again, they are displaying all the elements of the playground bully. Who are 'they'? We'll certainly not the 27 - most of them are simply toeing the party line set by Germany and France. Once again, this is an issue which we will have to wait and see what unfolds - especially if Theresa May, as predicted, gets a landslide victory at the General Election.

[Pete G]

I think you are just shutting down on your negotiating options if you just say 'nothing' and stop there.

There are some pretty well established rules, many have which have been confirmed in the CJEU [not that that actually makes a lot of a difference, as they are not bound by their previous decisions], regarding assets and liabilities in the break up of agreements, and that is the basis around which the discussions should be founded.

The problem is that the EU is so big, and so disorganised that it would take many years to unpick the data.

If I were negotiating for the UK, my initial position would be something along the lines of:

Of course we are interested in a fair division of the extant liabilities, but that obvious has to go hand in hand with a fair division of assets from our previous 'investments' in the EU, and getting a fair share of the benefits from any future payments we undertake to make as per well established rules of Equity. Just a superficial look at the figures [like the fact that there are only two member states that have been net contributors during their entire membership, and we're one of them], indicates our share of the assets would actually outweigh any extant liabilities, but we are aware of the effect of withdrawing our assets [or asking the EU to 'buy us out'] would have a net negative effect on the EU, which is a situation nobody wants. In order to ensure a smooth and speedy transition, were are prepared to waive our ownership of existing EU assets, in exchange for a waiver from the EU on any future commitments, even though that probably disadvantages us overall. This is in the interests of fruitful negotiations, and we expect similar accommodations from the EU on other issues. If you feel otherwise [i.e. it would actually be to the EU's detriment] then we look forward to your proposal as to how an accurate assessment might be carried out in the timescales permitted us both by Article 50.

Although I strongly suspect it wont make a difference anyway, as the EC are effectively negotiating on behalf of 27 parties who can't actually agree what they actually want amongst themselves, as witnessed by the fact that the EU have utterly failed to reach any non-specific trade deals with any of their major trading partners [for precisely this reason], so I suspect a 'Hard Brexit' with a scramble to make sector specific deals as soon as possible afterward is pretty inevitable, unless the EC move off their 'we must punish the UK pour l'encourager des Autres' and the only function the negotiation will serve will be to ensure that a number of bureaucrats get the opportunity to get in one last series of really, really, good lunches before the UK section of the gravy train pulls out of the station

[Pete G]

Meanwhile, at the EU Brexit summit

Outside the plenum session: Tusk announces an unparalleled unity amongst EU27 towards negotiations and EU integrity and institutions

Inside the Plenum Session: The Greeks demand Dijsselbloem's resignation

It would make a cat laugh

[josef k]

It is right that we should pay towards those pensions (as much as it galls me to see the likes of Kinnock, Patten and Mandelson with their snouts in the collective trough).

I am assuming you would include Nigel Farage who continues to claim his EU salary of 85,000 plus a year.

The fact is that the UK should, and will, pay what they are committed to. No more, no less.

[Royal]

I am assuming you would include Nigel Farage who continues to claim his EU salary of 85,000 plus a year.

Correct!

[Jim B]

The UK thought it would steamroller the EU into an agreement but it appears they are not prepared to be.

Jim

[Jimgym]

The UK want and will seek an honerable agreement....the EU are behaving like school ground bullies....their tone is aggressive and confrontational, and they are running scared....in regard to any payment...balance the books and provide a agreed payment.....which actually might be in our favour!

Well said Hudswell. I see the EU are now playing with Gibraltar to satisfy Spain. Not as some say on here an irrelevance, but actually quite important. Gibraltar is British and that is how they want to stay. I do find it interesting how some would happily give anything away if asked by the EU.

[Jimgym]

The UK thought it would steamroller the EU into an agreement but it appears they are not prepared to be.

Jim

Says who Jim? people on internet forums, newspaper articles? Who?

[Pete G]

Well Brexit does make for some strange bedfellows, doesn't it? For the second time in this Campaign, I find myself in complete agreement with a Marxist [in this case Varoufakis]

He's said [apparently] that sometimes the only way to get an agreeable position with the EC is just not to negotiate.

Based on their position paper, you've got to think this might be one of those times

[Jim B]

Alan
You must have seen all the news reports in the Brexit letter sent by May implying they would withdraw security collaboration if the UK couldn't have its own way; that really got the other 27 members on our side.

Hudswell

Honourable??? You are joking aren't you

Jim

[Varky]

The UK want and will seek an honerable agreement....the EU are behaving like school ground bullies....their tone is aggressive and confrontational, and they are running scared....in regard to any payment...balance the books and provide a agreed payment.....which actually might be in our favour!

For once I agree with you.
Some say that the EU hold all the cards. Well they can keep their cards, we have our contribution money and as long as they don't play along with a reasonable compromise, we don't give them any money.......simple.

[ApusApus]

That's called blackmail on their part, Lloyd. Rarely have I ever come across such a defeatist attitude as yours - thank goodness we don't have anyone on our negotiating team with the same leanings as you.

I think you're kinda forgetting that I am a staunch Remainer and pro-European - not a Brexiteer. I do NOT for one moment support the UK's decision to leave the EU, whether voted for by a notional majority or not. I cannot therefore defend the UK's position. As someone posted underneath a Cyprus Mail article earlier today, albeit in a different context:

(NuffSaid Monica): "You were the Turkeys who voted for Christmas. If you lose yours expat rights as a result of a bad deal then that's just too bad".

Adjust the last sentence to suit.

So you're one of those who would derail the UK's democratic position at every opportunity then!


Shane

[Jim B]

Alan
You must have seen all the news reports in the Brexit letter sent by May implying they would withdraw security collaboration if the UK couldn't have its own way; that really got the other 27 members on our side.

Hudswell

Honourable??? You are joking aren't you

Jim

Nope....unlike some...probably including you...I do have a degree faith in my country..

Like you I have a lot of faith in my country, it's just that I have no faith whatsoever in the charlatans, shysters and opportunist polititians you blindly follow. You talk about honour; would you call Boris honourable who knifed Cameron in the back because he saw the chance of becoming PM or Grove who in turn bladed Johnston. May another opportunist who didn't have the courage of convictions and jumped ship; honour, as I said you must be joking.

Jim

[Poppy]

Goodness Lloyd melodramatic or what?!!