Just 10 days before the general election, the EU published two documents that will affect every person living in Britain for years to come. Despite being dropped into the maelstrom of an election caused by Brexit, there was hardly a murmur.

The documents were the most detailed positions yet from the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, on the upcoming divorce talks with the UK.

In two policy papers, the bloc has elaborated its stance on the Brexit bill and citizens’ rights.

Neither Theresa May nor Jeremy Corbyn referred to them directly during a 90-minute Sky/Channel 4 TV debate on Monday evening.

Both party leaders declared they would secure a good deal, without going into specifics on issues that the EU has already taken a position on.

The muted reaction can be explained partly by the fact that the texts were published with zero fanfare, when the country was still reeling from the terrorist atrocity in Manchester.

Furthermore, the EU documents contain no surprises. The equivalent of dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, they are a reminder the EU has had 11 months to get ready for Brexit.

That is almost one year to assemble squadrons of specialists to pore over EU treaties and legal tomes to map the way ahead.

The 10-page paper on the bill does not put a price on the divorce, but sets out in painstaking detail all EU bodies with a vested interest in the spoils – 40 agencies, eight joint projects on new technologies and a panoply of funds agreed by all countries, from aid for refugees in Turkey to supporting peace in Colombia.

No detail is too small. Britain is even on the hook for funding teachers at the elite European schools that educate EU civil servants’ children.

On citizens’ rights, the EU spells out in greater detail the protections it wants to secure for nearly 5 million people on the wrong side of Brexit – 3.5 million EU nationals in the UK and 1.2 million Britons on the continent.

In a red rag to hardline Brexiters, the document stresses the European court of justice (ECJ) must have full jurisdiction for ruling on disputes about citizens’ rights, while the European commission ought to have full powers for monitoring whether the UK is upholding the bargain.

Aid for refugees in Turkey is among the financial demands mentioned in the documents. Photograph: Umit Bektas/Reuters

Diplomats from the EU’s 27 remaining member states will discuss the papers on Tuesday and Thursday without Britain, and could amend them. Further policy papers are expected in the coming days, including one on the ECJ.

The EU has promised to publish key Brexit documents, a decision that is both transparency pledge and negotiating tactic.

Senior officials think the reality of Brexit has not sunk in for the British government – a view that hardened during a disastrous dinner at 10 Downing Street last month.

Even before that unhappy meeting, the EU had pledged openness, in contrast to May’s determination not to give a running commentary.

“We need to tell the truth – and we will tell the truth – to our citizens about what Brexit means,” Barnier said in March.

The mood in Brussels has not improved since that ill-fated meal. Brussels diplomats were left incredulous after May said that “27 other European countries are lining up to oppose us”.

Coming from a prime minister who launched the article 50 process that requires the 27 to meet without the UK, the statement was seen as self-defeating and bizarre.



The UK has also lost goodwill by blocking talks on the EU budget and throwing in last-minute objections to an EU military headquarters it had already agreed to.

In both cases, purdah rules have been blamed, where a government in an election cannot bind the hands of its successor. Disagreements on the military plans have left a bitter taste. “We thought everything was agreed and the Brits played on us a nasty trick,” one senior EU diplomat told the Guardian. “Purdah is not something you should apply at random.”

The mood between the EU and Britain has soured since Jean-Claude Juncker’s ill-fated visit to Downing Street. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Seasoned observers say positions are becoming entrenched on both sides, because negotiations have not begun.

“On the side of the 27, people are a little cross and they have hardened their positions,” said Jean De Ruyt, a former EU ambassador. “It is a dangerous situation when you harden positions and you cannot do anything [because formal talks have not begun].”

The divide is stark on the Brexit bill. The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, was shocked after May told him the UK had no obligation to pay anything on leaving the bloc.

Diplomats on the EU side say they cannot contemplate scaling back demands on the divorce. EU civil service pensions will not be bartered away to secure the UK’s post-Brexit contribution to the union’s seven-year budget, known as the multiannual financial framework (MFF), the EU diplomat said.

“I think our priority is that the UK will pay for everything,” they said. “Everything is a priority – we cannot trade pensions for the MFF.”

Others think May’s government has not grasped that the EU is protecting its interests, rather than plotting against the British.

“You have to understand there is no feeling of revenge, but we are absolutely convinced that we cannot put the single market in danger,” said the French liberal politician Sylvie Goulard.

A confidante of French president Emmanuel Macron, she was speaking last month, shortly before she was named as France’s defence minister.

The EU needs to ensure it can protect its own institutions and positions, she said in an interview.

Protecting the EU single market and institutions was “the only way to build a sound new relationship, if we build something ambiguous then we will have a disaster … you want to take back control, we also want to keep control.”