A LEAKED report from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs has revealed the EU are unimpressed with Britain’s incoherent and “chaotic” approach to Brexit.
One Czech Minister told Irish officials he found Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson “unimpressive”, while “pessimistic” Latvian officials said British Ministers made “a poor impression”.
Even the British judge in the European Court of Justice, Ian Forrester, bemoaned "the quality of politicians in Westminster", adding that the British public might view Brexit as “a great mistake” when they realised what leaving the EU entailed.
The report, which has been seen by RTÉ, was based on meetings between Irish ambassadors and senior embassy officials, and government officials in 10 EU member states and in Japan.
The meetings took place between November 6-10, three weeks after the EU summit in Brussels where EU leaders told Theresa May that Britain needed to do more on the three key issues – the continuing rights of citizens in each other’s jurisdictions, Britain’s financial settlement and the Irish border question.
'Chaotic political situation'
While the Czech minister was at least grateful that Johnson had “avoided any gaffes” during a visit in September, the country's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jakub Dürr, told officials he "felt sorry for British Ambassadors around the EU trying to communicate a coherent message when there is political confusion at home".
Latvian officials echoed this sentiment, saying they were pessimistic a deal could be reached at December’s summit to enable progression to the second round of negotiations, citing the biggest problem as “the chaotic political situation in the UK government".
As well as Latvia and the Czech Republic’s dim view of British ministers, the French were also unimpressed.
French Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian and Nathalie Loiseau, the French Minister for European Affairs, expressed their surprise that at a meeting with David Davis, the Brexit minister barely mentioned Brexit.
The leaked report states: "Despite having billed this in the media in advance as a meeting to 'unblock' French resistance, Davis hardly mentioned Brexit at all during the meeting, much to French surprise, focusing instead on foreign policy issues."
Meanwhile Judge Forrester, Britain's member of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, said that despite having a lot of contact with British government officials in relation to Brexit, "only one person out of all those who had been in contact had any real grasp of the complexities involved [in leaving the EU]”.
The next EU council summit takes place in Brussels on December 14-15.
