Polish MEP Danuta Hübner says Britain cannot negotiate a free-trade agreement until it has left the European Union

Liam Fox’s hopes of securing a trade deal with the European Union before Brexit have been dealt a blow by a leading member of the European parliament, who insists no deal can be struck until the UK has left the bloc.

Danuta Hübner, a former Polish minister who became the country’s first European commissioner, said it would not be possible for the UK to conclude a trade deal while still an EU member.

Now an MEP, she chairs the European parliament’s constitutional affairs committee, which will be responsible for vetting any post-Brexit free-trade agreement with the UK.



In an interview with the Guardian, she stressed negotiations on Britain’s EU exit under article 50, due to begin next year, would be on a different track to talks on the future relationship.



“Formally you cannot conclude or even negotiate the agreement that belongs to a third-country situation while you are still a member. Article 50 is only about withdrawal and only when you are out can [you] negotiate another agreement.”



Last week, Fox, the international trade secretary, suggested the UK would aim to reach an agreement on its future trading status with the EU before leaving.

Criticising positions of “ultra-legality”, Fox argued it was in the interests of both sides to avoid a situation where a regional parliament could delay a UK-EU economic agreement, in the same way the Belgian region of Wallonia blocked an EU trade deal with Canada.

Speaking to MPs on the European scrutiny committee, he said: “That sort of procedure would only be undertaken were we to leave the European Union after article 50, period, without any agreement whatsoever and were looking to seek a new FTA [free trade agreement] from outside.”



Hübner said the two processes, although linked, would not be merged. A trade deal would be “challenging” to agree, she added, because it requires unanimity from all EU member states. The article 50 exit talks, which cover unwinding 43 years of the UK’s EU membership, require only majority agreement among other member states.

But the Polish politician was clear that the British withdrawal agreement would have to specify whether the UK was heading for hard or soft Brexit. This is in line with article 50, which states that the exit agreement shall take into account “the framework for [the the departing state’s] future relationship with the union”.

The MEP said: “Our major challenge is how to ensure that between the withdrawal agreement and the future agreement there is no legal vacuum.”

As the British government weighs up its options on the single market and customs union, the EU machinery is whirring into gear to prepare for the launch of Brexit talks in spring 2017.



Officially, the European parliament has no place at the negotiating table, but its consent is needed to seal the article 50 deal and any new status agreement with Brexit Britain.

Preparations go well beyond the appointment of Guy Verhofstadt, former Belgian prime minister and leader of the Liberal bloc, as the parliament’s spokesman on the Brexit process. Hübner’s constitutional affairs committee will be in charge of drafting the parliament’s position on any new deal with the UK; several other committees will also weigh in, before the agreement is put to a vote by all MEPs.

Theresa May’s government should expect the European parliament to be one of the staunchest defenders of the principle of free movement of people, according to Hübner.

“We will be the institution that will be looking with concern to the rights of citizens,” she said, adding that free movement was where “the most drastic differences” between the UK and rest of the EU were evident.



A former Polish Europe minister, who spent years in painstaking negotiations to bring her country into the EU, she said: “We are working to facilitate free movement, not to block it and to limit it, so I don’t see much chance in looking for restrictions.”



She rejected the idea that central and eastern European governments would cave in on this principle, in order to keep more of their talented citizens at home. “You don’t control what your citizens are doing from this point of view,” she said. “It is up to people to evaluate their future and their chances and have the freedom of moving and working wherever there is a job.”



She contrasted Poles, Romanians and Spaniards, who worked in the UK and paid more taxes than they received in benefits, with British pensioners living in Spain, who were likely to take advantage of the Spanish healthcare system. “It is not fair that in UK, politicians do not explain how much you have benefited from the free movement of labour.”

Describing Brexit as a “major mistake” in European history, she said she would prefer to be in a union of 28, with the UK. But she is not convinced a hard Brexit is inevitable and predicted that economic arguments would win out over demands for curbs on immigration.

She predicted a shift from “purely political considerations” towards a stance that takes greater account of the economic repercussions of Brexit. But she still regretted the Brexit choice.

“Such a decision is not made for a week or a year, it is for a generation.”