Visegrad Group of EU states set to veto any Brexit deal threatening free movement

[muriel_volestrangler]

Four central European countries are prepared to veto any Brexit deal agreed between the UK and the European Union that restricts their citizens’ rights to live and work in Britain, the prime minister of Slovakia has said.

In a stark reminder of the challenge Britain faces at the negotiating table, Robert Fico said Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – known as the Visegrad, or V4, group – would not hesitate to block any future trade accord that threatened the key EU principle of free movement of workers.

“The V4 countries will be uncompromising,” Fico said on Saturday, a day after EU leaders met informally in Bratislava, without Britain, to try to chart a roadmap for the bloc’s future after the shock of the Brexit vote.

“Unless we feel a guarantee that these people (living and working in Britain) are equal, we will veto any agreement between the EU and Britain,” Fico told Reuters. “I think Britain knows this is an issue for us where there’s no room for compromise.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/17/eastern-bloc-countries-will-uphold-citizens-rights-to-live-in-uk

If they did veto such a deal, then I presume it would mean that, 2 years after invoking Article 50, the UK is out, with no agreement about free movement or the single market. That would suit the extreme Brexiters, but could cause all sorts of economic problems. Harder to export, and labour costs up as the cheap Eastern European labour becomes unavailable.

[RogueTrooper]

1. Proverbs 16:18 "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

I can't help but think of this quote from the Bible when I think of of Britain's decision to leave the EU. Nothing else explains the phenomena of people voting to leave as well as this quote (I think) .

I fear that the extreme brexiters are going to have a disproportionate influence on the exit negotiations and, as a consequence, they will get exactly what they want: Hard Brexit (by default in this case). With no agreement the UK will be in dire straits. The EU has a history of acting quite aggresivly towards those who transgress its rules and social contracts (see Switzerland).

The loudest voice in Brexit can be paraphrased as

The result will be Biblical.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Indeed; I'm very worried about the influence of the hard-Brexiters

I keep being reminded of Ogden Nash's verses:


Foreigners are people somewhere else,
Natives are people at home;
If the place you’re at
Is your habitat,
You’re a foreigner, say in Rome.
But the scales of Justice balance true,
And tit leads into tat,
So the man who’s at home
When he stays in Rome
Is abroad when he’s where you’re at....

There’s many a difference quickly found
Between the different races,
But the only essential
Differential
Is living different places.
Yet such is the pride of prideful man,
From Austrians to Australians,
That wherever he is,
He regards as his,
And the natives there, as aliens.

Oh, I’ll be friends if you’ll be friends,
The foreigner tells the native,
And we’ll work together for our common ends
Like a preposition and a dative.
If our common ends seem mostly mine,
Why not, you ignorant foreigner?
And the native replies
Contrariwise;
And hence, my dears, the coroner...

[LeftishBrit]

2. Very understandable of them...

though there's a part of me that sees some hypocrisy in it, given that 3 of the 4 governments in question have a breathtakingly horrible attitude to refugees (I except the Czech Republic from this). But the UK has been both horribly hypocritical and horribly foolish on anything to do with the EU!