The State of the European Union. The European Parliament faces its most important elections yet

THE UNCERTAINTIES OF BREXIT: QUO VADIS, BRITANNIA? 119 Treaty to control the political course of the ne- gotiations, any agreement negotiated must be approved by EP. For that reason, the Commission decided to keep the European Parliament in the loop from the outset by setting up almost weekly meet- ings between Chief Negotiator Barnier and a contact group headed by Guy Verhofstadt, the leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, providing updates at plenary ses- sions and to the EP Committee on Constitutional Affairs and including a representative of the Parliament in the negotiating team. Negotiations have proved to be particularly complicated. This has been in large part due to the British position, which on numerous occa- sions has been incoherent, has changed various times and remained substantially undefined un- til the latter phases of the negotiations owing to May’s weak position as leader of a minority gov- ernment. 7 In addition to this problem there have been deep divisions on the subject within both the Conservative and Labour parties that have led to numerous resignations – some of them pertaining to the negotiating team – and fur- 7  May laid out the British negotiating position in a series of speeches. A striking example of the numerous about-faces she made during the negotiating process was her early in- sistence that no agreement was better than a bad agree- ment, a posture she later abandoned. Another was her shift from the position that the UK should be able to remain in the Common Market unfettered by the need to respect the principle of free circulation to a firm decision that the UK would leave both the Common Market and the EU Cus- toms Union. The main documents and speeches through which she articulated the UK negotiating position on with- drawal are: May, T.: Letter to Donald Tusk triggering Article 50 , London, 29 March 2017; Speech on the Government’s Negotiating Objectives for Exiting the EU , Lancaster House, London, 17 January 2017; A New Era of Cooperation and Partnership between the UK and the EU, Florence, 22 Sep- tember 2017; Speech at the 2018 Munich Security Confer- ence, Munich, 17 February 2018; and Speech on our future economic partnership with the European Union, Mansion House, London, 2 March 2018. ther divisions between British citizens concern- ing what sort of Brexit should be negotiated. 8 The process has laid bare the daft and contra- diction-ridden nature of the political discourse pursued by those who provided the impetus for the Brexit movement and now find it impossible to make good on their promises. The European team on the other side of the table has maintained a surprising unity and con- sistent position – prerequisites for effective ne- gotiation. The three EU institutions involved (the European Parliament, Commission and Council) have collaborated closely from the beginning, coordinating their respective roles and uphold- ing a solid, common posture unmarred by inter- nal dissension. The EU has conducted its side of the process with an impressive level of transpar- ency, releasing information concerning its nego- tiating position, meeting agendas and results on a regular basis and organising press conferences at which Barnier explained each turn of events. 9 The level of unanimity within the European camp flew in the face of predictions from many corners that cohesion between the EU 27 would be fragile and crumble when negotiations ad- dressed points on which their interests diverged. However, negotiations have concluded without even one Member State breaking ranks, despite internal conflicts concerning other matters with Members such as Hungary and Poland. Although the United Kingdom had served as a reference model for other Members and managed to 8  It is striking that two heads of the UK government’s De- partment for Exiting the European Union (David Davies and Dominic Raab) as well as a foreign secretary (Boris Johnson) have resigned over their disagreement with May’s negotiat- ing stance. 9  Documents, speeches and press releases have been post- ed on a regular, ongoing basis in the Article 50 Task Force section of the European Commission website. See: https:// ec.europa.eu/info/departments/taskforce-article-50-negoti- ations-united-kingdom_en