European commission president uses salty language to warn PM that Britain will not be able to negotiate ‘cut-price’ exit from EU

Britain can expect a “very hefty” bill as the price of leaving the EU, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has warned.



Speaking to the Belgian federal parliament, Juncker spoke of his personal sadness about Brexit but insisted that the UK would not be able to negotiate a “cut-price or zero-cost” exit.

Instead, he said, it would have to pay a high price for the commitments which it entered into while a member state, adding that Brexit was “a crisis which concerns us all”.

“We need to settle our affairs not with our hearts full of a feeling of hostility, but with the knowledge that the continent owes a lot to the UK,” he said. “Without [Winston] Churchill, we would not be here – we mustn’t forget that, but we mustn’t be naive.

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“Our British friends need to know – and they know it already – that it will not be cut-price or zero cost.

Using the French slang word “salty”, meaning hefty or pricey, he added: “Therefore the bill will be – to use a rather vulgar term – very salty. It will be necessary for the British to respect commitments which they freely entered into.”

Discussions are under way in Brussels over the size of the bill to be presented to Theresa May when she launches withdrawal talks. At a meeting of EU27 member states and the commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, in Brussels last week, it was suggested that Britain was likely to be asked to pay about €57bbn (£48bn) in instalments over the next six years.

The sum is expected to cover the UK’s share of the cost of projects and programmes it signed up to as part of the 28-nation bloc, as well as pensions for all the EU officials who have served during its 45-year membership.

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Juncker also reiterated the commission’s’ position that withdrawal arrangements – including an agreement on the bill, the rights of EU nationals in the UK and British nationals living on the continent and an arrangement over a potential border between Northern Ireland and the Republic – must be agreed before there can be meaningful discussions about future trade relations.

The UK government has insisted that these talks can run in parallel after May triggers negotiations under article 50.

Juncker said: “This will be a difficult negotiation, which will take two years to reach agreement on the exit arrangements. To agree on the future architecture of the relations between the UK and EU, it will need years.”

He added: “Those who want to benefit from the advantages of the single market must respect the four fundamental freedoms, including the one which relates to the movement of workers.”