POLITICO: Merkel: Post-Brexit trade deal need not mean ‘cherry-picking’

16 February 2018

The U.K. and the EU can find a “fair balance” in Brexit trade talks that would not mean the U.K. “cherry-picking” the most beneficial aspects of single market access, Angela Merkel said.

Speaking in Berlin after meeting Theresa May, the German chancellor insisted she is not “frustrated” by the U.K.’s failure so far to give a detailed account of its goals in the future economic relationship with the EU — “just curious.”

However, she appeared to offer an olive branch by suggesting that the U.K.’s hopes of a bespoke deal may be achievable. Asked about bespoke arrangements — as opposed to the starker options of single market membership or a Canada-style trade deal — she said it was “not a given” that such an arrangement “means cherry-picking.”

“In the end the outcome needs to be a fair balance that deviates from the single market and is not as close a partnership as we’ve had, but I think one can find that,” she said, according to the official translation of her remarks.

Merkel’s characterization of her post-Brexit preferred trade deal as one that is “as close as possible but … different to what Britain currently has as a member,” will be welcomed by U.K. officials pursuing a middle way between full participation in the single market and a limited free-trade agreement that would be unlikely to provide deep trade ties for British financial services firms. [...]

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