Brussels told the UK on Thursday to immediately scrap its plans to override Britain’s Brexit treaty or face legal action, in a sharp escalation of the two sides’ dispute over the measures.
In a terse statement, the European Commission handed Britain a deadline of the end of September to withdraw its planned internal market bill. It warned that the draft legislation was a threat to the Good Friday Agreement, saying it had “seriously damaged trust between the EU and the UK”.
In a written “legal position”, also published on Thursday, the UK conceded that the bill created powers that could “be exercised in a way that is incompatible with provisions of the withdrawal agreement”.
But the legal analysis also stated: “Parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass legislation which is in breach of the UK’s Treaty obligations.”
EU officials were baffled at the assertion. “They’ve been reading too much Kafka in Number 10,” said one.
The public statements came as the latest round of trade talks wound up in London and followed an emergency meeting of the joint EU-UK committee that oversees the Brexit deal agreed last year.
Brussels called for the meeting after the UK government’s shock decision to break international law by using parliament to override parts of the protocol on Northern Ireland enshrined in the UK’s withdrawal agreement.
The protocol solved the long-running stalemate between the two sides over how to prevent a hard trade border on the island of Ireland by keeping Northern Ireland close to the EU customs union at the same time as being in the UK’s customs territory.
Maros Sefcovic, the EU’s lead representative on the joint committee, laid bare Brussels’ deep concerns about the violation of the Northern Ireland protocol, warning that the future of trade talks with the UK was at stake.
Mr Sefcovic called on the UK government to “withdraw these measures from the draft bill in the shortest time possible and in any case by the end of the month”.
He stated the move had “seriously damaged trust between the EU and the UK”. The commission’s statement added that it was now “up to the UK government to re-establish that trust”.
EU diplomats underlined that Brussels has no intention of immediately shutting down the future-relationship talks, saying it would amount to falling into a trap set by the UK. But officials said the eighth round of talks had made little progress.
“If the UK wants a no-deal, it should just say so,” said one diplomat. “We are working calmly and patiently towards a deal.”
The EU’s rejection of Britain’s stance on the internal market bill has unleashed a storm of criticism over the legislative plans.
On Thursday the former Tory party leader Michael Howard joined former Conservative prime ministers John Major and Theresa May in accusing the government of tarnishing Britain’s international reputation, while tensions over the bill led to the resignation of the government’s most senior lawyer on Tuesday.
Brussels dismissed arguments put forward by UK ministers that the plans were a necessary safeguard to preserve the peace process in Northern Ireland.
“The EU does not accept the argument that the aim of the draft bill is to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement,” the commission said. “In fact, it is of the view that it does the opposite.”
The commission also said that the UK faced legal action if it failed to comply, adding that Mr Sefcovic “reminded the UK government that the withdrawal agreement contains a number of mechanisms and legal remedies to address violations of the legal obligations contained in the text — which the European Union will not be shy in using”.
An internal EU commission analysis paper, seen by the Financial Times, warns that, even by just putting forward the bill, Britain was “in violation of the good faith obligation” enshrined in its Brexit treaty.
The commission paper runs through Brussels’ options for action under the treaty, including hauling the country before the European Court of Justice or launching an arbitration process — either of which could end in fines.
Michael Gove, the UK cabinet minister, sought to reassure Mr Sefcovic at Thursday’s meeting that the plans were intended as a safeguard and that Britain was “absolutely committed” to the Northern Ireland protocol.
The bill would hand ministers powers to intervene on matters including the application of EU state aid rules in Northern Ireland and the need for export declarations on goods shipped from the province to Great Britain.
But EU officials countered that the measures would ride roughshod over clear undertakings in the treaty, undermining a painstakingly constructed agreement intended to keep trade flowing on the island of Ireland no matter what happened in future EU-UK negotiations.