Barnier to UK: Staying close to EU model could be ‘decisive’

The U.K. needs to decide if it wants to stay “close to the European model” after leaving the EU or “gradually move away from it,” Michel Barnier, the bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator, said Monday.

In a speech at the Brussels base of the Centre for European Reform, a British think-tank, Barnier said the answer to that question “will be important and even decisive” for the future partnership “and shape also the conditions for ratification of that partnership in many national parliaments and obviously in the European Parliament.”

He was speaking just over a week after the sixth round of Brexit talks ended without a great deal of progress. It also came in the wake of Barnier giving the U.K. two weeks to show movement in Brexit talks in order to ensure EU leaders can say “sufficient progress” has been made at their summit in December.

“If we manage to negotiate an orderly withdrawal, fully respect the integrity of the single market, and establish a level playing field, there is every reason for our future partnership to be ambitious,” Barnier said Monday, adding that the EU had to avoid a situation “where trade would happen under the WTO rules for goods and services.”