EU restates positions on
Brexit talks, market access
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[September 14, 2016]
STRASBOURG (Reuters) - EU chief
executive Jean-Claude Juncker warned London again on Wednesday that it
could not have access to Europe's single market if it bars some EU
citizens from working in Britain after Brexit.
"There can be no a la carte access to the single market," the
European Commission president told the European Parliament in his
annual State of the Union address. "Only those can have unlimited
access to the internal market who accept that there will be free
access for persons and goods."
The point has been made repeatedly by Brussels as it waits for
British Prime Minister Theresa May to launch the formal process of
negotiation. The British government wants to retain trade access on
the best terms with the EU but, following the June referendum, says
free immigration from the EU must end.
On Tuesday, the same point was made by Guy Verhofstadt, the
parliament's negotiator on Brexit. He said the four European
freedoms -- of goods, services, capital and labor -- were
indivisible and Britain could not have one without all of them.
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During Wednesday's debate, Verhofstadt said the European Union
should treat the negotiations with Britain as an occasion to make
progress rather than take revenge.
"Brexit is not a liability. I see it more as an opportunity," he
said. "Our duty, our responsibility is to make Brexit a success for
Europe, for all citizens of Europe.
"Brexit is not a matter of punishment, it's not a matter of
revenge," he said, addressing British eurosceptic members who
described him as anti-British "fanatic" in his pursuit of a more
closely integrated EU.
Nigel Farage, of the UK Independence Party, said Verhofstadt's
insistence this week that Britain could not retain access to the EU
single market if it did not accept fully free immigration from the
EU meant a agreed deal would be unlikely.
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![](../images/091416pics/busine59.jpg)
Guy Verhofstadt speaks on provisional results for the European
Parliament elections at the European Parliament in Brussels May 25,
2014. REUTERS/Eric Vidal
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Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister, said: "Let's stop on
both sides of the Channel our collective depression and let's stop
the politics of division and cite this opportunity not to kill
Europe as some of you want but to reinvent Europe."
Verhofstadt will represent the parliament in negotiations once the
British government launches the Brexit process.
Farage called his appointment "pretty much an act of war on any
sensible negotiating process".
Failure to agree a free-trade deal between Britain and the European
Union, Farage said, would not damage the British economy as much as
those of Germany and other manufacturing countries which export
substantial amounts to Britain.
(Reporting by Marilyn Haigh, Jan Strupczewski and Alastair
Macdonald; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
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