Varadkar: The EU has the upper hand in Brexit trade talks
Ireland’s Prime Minister Leo Varadkar feels the EU will have an advantage in the upcoming trade deal talks between the UK and the bloc.
Varadkar used a sports analogy to explain the EU has a “stronger team” than Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s UK, due to its larger population and market size.
The Irish PM is set to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Dublin today, days before Brexit occurs on 31 January.
“The European Union is a union of 27 member states. The UK is only one country. And we have a population and a market of 450m people,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg.
“The UK, it’s about 60m. So if these were two teams up against each other playing football, who do you think has the stronger team?”
Varadkar warned securing a trade deal by the end of 2020, when the Brexit transition period concludes, will be difficult.
Read more: Exclusive: Boris Johnson settles on his Brexit trade team
That runs counter to Johnson’s own suggestion that there is “bags of time” to do a deal. The UK wants to negotiate a “zero tariff, zero quota” agreement with the EU, Brexit secretary Stephen Barclay has said.
“It will be difficult to do this,” Varadkar responded. An extension to the transition period, something Johnson has ruled out, would be necessary to achieve this, he argued.
But he said “we won’t be dragging our feet” to negotiate a trade deal. The Irish Prime Minister outlined the need for legal assurances the UK would not undercut the EU and must adopt a common set of minimum standards with the bloc.
Varadkar also warned against any attempt to win a “piecemeal” deal with the EU.
“When I hear people talk about piecemeal, it sounds a bit like cake and eat,” he said.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and Barnier have both said a trade deal by the end of 2020 will be difficult to secure.