Francois Hollande said on Thursday evening that “firmness” is needed with London on future negotiations for Brexit …
In a speech on the occasion of the twenty years of the creation of the Institute Jacques Delors, François Hollande pleaded on Thursday for “firmness” with London in future negotiations on the Brexit .
“There needs to be a price”
“There needs to be a threat, there must be a risk, there must be a price, otherwise we will be in a negotiation that will not end well and, inevitably, will have economic and human consequences for Europe”, he began.
“The United Kingdom has decided to make a Brexit, I think even a hard Brexit, well, then it will be the British out of the EU” , stressed the head of the State, speaking under the Gothic arches of the College of Bernardins in Paris.
Firmness
For François Hollande, “we must have this firmness” otherwise “we will put into question the very principles of the European Union” and “it will come to mind to other countries or other parties want to get out of European Union to have the supposed benefits and no downside or rule”.
Absent Thursday night, Jacques Delors, who was president of the European Commission for a decade, from January 1985 to December 1994, “had also faced the crises of the UK”, he observed.
“At that time Mrs Thatcher, who wanted to stay in Europe for economic means, but wanted to receive a return cheque”, he continued, linking: “Today Britain wants to leave but would not pay anything, it is not possible ” .
Hard Brexit ?
The British Prime Minister Theresa May said she wanted to trigger Article 50 of the European Treaty of Lisbon by the end of next March, paving the way for an exit from the United Kingdom to the European Union early in 2019.
This desire to go fast and the uncompromising tone on immigration has left many thinking she leaned toward a “hard Brexit” that is to say, punctuated with a minimum negotiation with Brussels.
