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THESE are exhilarating times for the 52% of British voters who last summer opted to leave the European Union. After months of rumours that an anti-Brexit counter-revolution was being plotted by the Europhile establishment (who even won a Supreme Court case forbidding the government from triggering Brexit without Parliaments permission), it at last looks as if independence beckons. This week the House of Commons voted to approve the process of withdrawal. The prime minister, Theresa May, will invoke Article 50 of the EU treaty next month, beginning a two-year countdown to freedom.

But the triumphant mood is about to sour, for a reason few people have grasped. The first item on the agenda in Brussels, where divorce terms are to be thrashed out, will be a large demand for cash. To Britons who voted to leave the EU because they were told it would save them 350m ($440m) a week, this will come as a shock. The mooted bill is hugesome in Brussels talk of 60bn ($64bn), enough to host the London Olympics five times overand its calculations open to endless argument. Until now the Brexit debate has focused on grander matters, such as the future of the 600bn-a-year trading relationship between Britain and the EU. Yet a row over the exit payment could derail the talks in their earliest stages.

The tab is eye-watering. Britains liabilities include contributions to the EUs pension scheme, which is generous and entirely unfunded. The biggest item, which Britain will surely challenge, is the countrys share of responsibility for a multi-billion-euro collection of future projects to which the EU has committed itself but not yet allocated a budget. These liabilities, and sundry smaller ones, may be offset a little by Britains share of the EUs assets, mostly property in Brussels and elsewhere around the world. By one analysis (see article), the bill could be as little as 25bn or as much as 73bn.

So there is plenty to haggle over. But the very idea that the charge is something to be negotiated irritates many Eurocrats, who see it as a straightforward account to be settled. The European Commissions negotiators insist that the divorce agreement must be signed off before the wrangling can begin on anything else, such as future trading relations. Britain would prefer to tally up the bill in parallel with talks on other matters, in order to trade more cash for better access.

Garon! This isnt what I ordered

It is in everyones interests to reach an agreement. If talks fail and Britain walks out without paying, the EU will be left with a big hole in its spending plans. Net contributors, chiefly Germany and France, would face higher payments and net recipients would see their benefits cut. For Britain the satisfaction at having fled without paying would evaporate amid rancid relations with the continent, wrecking prospects of a trade deal; a rupture in everything from intelligence-sharing to joint scientific research; and, perhaps, a visit from the bailiffs of the International Court of Justice. Such an outcome would be bad for the EU but it would be even worse for Britain.

That imbalance will become a theme of the Article 50 negotiations. It suggests that the British will have to do most of the compromising. Mrs May must not waste the two-year timetable haggling over a few billion, when trade worth vastly more hangs in the balance. The EU can help by agreeing to discuss the post-Brexit settlement in parallel with the debate about money. Rolling the lot into one would increase the opportunities for trade-offs that benefit both sides.

But there is a danger of hardliners in London and Brussels making compromise impossible. Some in the European Commission are too eager to make a cautionary tale of Britains exit. And they overestimate Mrs Mays ability to sell a hard deal at home. The British public is unprepared for the exit charge, which is not mentioned in the governments white paper on the talks. The pro-Brexit press, still giddy from its unexpected victory last summer, will focus both on the shockingly large total and also on the details (heres one: the average Eurocrats pension is double Britains average household income). It has flattered Mrs May with comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, who wrung a celebrated rebate out of the EU in 1984. A small band of Brexiteer MPs have a Trumpian desire to carry out not just a hard Brexit but an invigoratingly disruptive one. Mrs Mays working majority in Parliament is only 16.

Everyone would be worse off if the Article 50 talks foundered. Yet the breadth of the gap in expectations between the EU and Britain, and the lack of time in which to bridge it, mean that such an act of mutual self-harm is dangerously possible.

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A row over money could derail Brexit talks before they have begun - The Economist

The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department. Alex Wong/Getty Images hide caption

The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini met with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the State Department.

This is a new era for U.S. relations with the European Union.

Gone are the days when the U.S. was more supportive of European integration than some Europeans are. The European Union's top diplomat, Federica Mogherini, is expecting a more businesslike, "transactional" approach with President Donald Trump, who has been skeptical of the EU and backs the British exit plan.

"We do not interfere in U.S. politics ... and Europeans expect that America does not interfere in European politics," Mogherini told reporters at the end of her trip to Washington.

She says she raised concerns about the man rumored to become the next U.S. ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch, another supporter of Brexit and someone who has suggested the European Union "needs a little taming."

"I was told there is no decision taken on the next U.S. ambassador to the European Union," Mogherini said, adding that she explained to U.S. officials that all EU member states have to agree to accredit a foreign ambassador.

"That has to be taken into consideration," she stressed.

The European Union's foreign policy chief met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, as well as several White House advisers, including President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Kushner is taking the lead on Middle East policy and Mogherini says she talked to him about the possibility of reviving Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and where the EU stands on that. She's also pressing the Trump administration not to walk away from the nuclear deal with Iran, which she oversees.

"The deal is working and we need to preserve it this way," she said, adding that she was reassured by what she heard in her meetings.

Mogherini says she also got reassurances from the Trump administration that the U.S. will continue to push Russia to implement an international peace plan on Ukraine before easing sanctions. The U.S. has made clear that it will maintain sanctions related to Crimea unless Russia returns the peninsula to Ukraine. Officials, though, have carefully left open the door to easing other sanctions, related to Russia's actions in Eastern Ukraine and its cyberattacks in the U.S.

The State Department did not issue a statement about Secretary Tillerson's meeting with Europe's top diplomat.

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EU Foreign Policy Chief Meets With Secretary Of State Tillerson, WH Advisers - NPR

Updated / Saturday, 11 Feb 2017 21:03

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he fears Britain will divide the European Union's 27 remaining members by making different promises to each country during its Brexit negotiations.

"The other EU 27 don't know it yet, but the Brits know very well how they can tackle this," Mr Juncker told Deutschlandfunk radio.

"They could promise country A this, country B that and country C something else and the end game is that there is not a united European front."

By the end of March Britain will trigger formal divorce talks with the EU, a major test for the bloc which is struggling to have a grip on other challenges like keeping Greece in the eurozone, the refugee crisis and the election of Donald Trump as US president.

To add to all of that, the Netherlands, France and Germany are holding general elections this year, in which populist anti-EU parties are expected to make strong showings.

"Now everyone is saying in relation to Trump and Brexit: 'Now is Europe's big chance. Now is the time to close ranks and march together,'" Mr Juncker said in the radio interview which will be aired tomorrow.

"I wish it will be like this, but will it happen? I have some doubt. Because the Brits will manage without big effort to divide the remaining 27 member states."

His warning echoed remarks by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at an EU summit in Bratislava last yearthat the bloc is in a critical situation.

Mr Juncker said one area where the remaining 27 could improve cooperation was defence. Britain and France are the only EU countries with nuclear arsenals.

Mr Juncker, who will host US Vice President Mike Pence in Brussels next weekend, said a protectionist trade policy by the Trump administration would be an opportunity for the EU to forge new trade alliances.

"It would be a change that we have to use," Mr Juncker said. "And we should not allow the Brits to pursue trade deals now with others because they are not allowed to do so."

He said that as long as Britain was in the bloc, the European Commission was in charge of negotiating trade deals.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage (above) has said Mr Juncker's comments show Brussels is "worried and nervous" about UK tactics.

Mr Farage said that the remarks "showed cracks were appearing" in the EU stance as tough exit horse-trading looms.

"I am surprised that Jean-Claude Juncker is so worried about the British," said Mr Farage.

"From a UK perspective, I am pleased to see his nervousness. Up until now we have been constantly told it is going to be us versus the other 27."

Britain's Brexit department declined to comment directly on Mr Juncker's remarks, but pointed to a recent speech by the Prime Minister in which Theresa May said she wanted a "strong and constructive" partnership with the EU.

Trump says he will bring down price of Mexico wall

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Juncker fears Britain could divide EU over Brexit talks - RTE.ie

BRUSSELS Michel Barnier has a dealmaker's flair for gauging what the other side can accept but as Theresa May prepares to launch Brexit negotiations some EU officials wonder if Brussels' man can really figure out what she wants.

That is a nagging question for European Union leaders who need the veteran French minister and EU commissioner to best the British premier in a grand bargain that will usher Britain out, keep the other 27 member states in and limit the economic harm.

"He's very good at working out what people want, where the landing zones are to get them to agreement," said one of several people who have worked with Barnier and spoke to Reuters about the EU's chief Brexit negotiator. "He reads a room very well."

Yet some EU officials wonder if he might be "too French" or "too European" to get inside the opposition's head: "I wonder if he really understands the Brits?" said one fellow negotiator.

As agriculture minister [L5N1FU6NH], he revamped budgets yet kept France's famously restive farmers onside; in Brussels, he tightened control of vast regional grants. His low-key, backroom style won fewer admirers, though, when he lasted just a year in the grander public role of French foreign minister.

On his Brexit qualifications, he cites his experience getting Britain to accept extensive EU financial regulations in his last job, as services commissioner in Brussels until 2014.

Years of argument ended with London agreeing all but two of dozens of measures. Colleagues praised how Barnier sensed, long before others, where the toughest problems would lie, such as an EU cap on bankers' bonuses, and how they might be resolved - in the case of bonuses, however, only when Britain failed in court.

"DANGEROUS FRENCHMAN"

That history saw his appointment branded an "act of war" by one British paper. City of London insiders say they fear Barnier has "mercantilist" instincts, a yen to rein in markets rooted in French history and a Gaullist conservatism that is at odds with freewheeling "laissez faire" culture in Britain.

But some of his old British sparring partners disagree.

"There are lots of people who are jumping up and down saying 'Oh, we've got this dangerous Frenchman in here that's going to undermine London'," said Syed Kamall, pro-Brexit leader of May's Conservatives in the European Parliament. "It's not like that.

"He's going to be a reasonable negotiator," he said. "That doesn't mean we're going to agree at the end of the day.

"But I can think of few other people that I would want on the other side of the negotiating table."

Barnier knows Brexit Secretary David Davis from their time as Europe ministers in the 1990s - part of a vast contact list of people from many walks of life that Barnier has built in four decades since he was elected to parliament aged just 27.

Not all who know Barnier share Kamall's assurance he can keep talks civil. One City executive said Barnier won "grudging respect" from British negotiators for coming to understand their issues and improving his English. But he also came over as aloof and "patrician", brusque with his staff and juniors, and "vain".

The tall, athletic form and chiselled jawline may justify a touch of vanity. But some detect, for example in his frequent references to organising the 1992 Winter Olympics in his beloved native Savoy Alps, a touch of insecurity over a career he began at business school, not Paris's elite civil service college ENA.

"KEEP CALM"

A self-styled outsider, Barnier became "more European than French" in Brussels, making a virtue of wide reading, hard graft and the stolid pragmatism of his remote, modest Alpine roots: "He's very aware of his limitations," said one person who has known him well for many years. "Underestimate him and you lose."

Focusing on Britain, Barnier shows flashes of often self-deprecating wit that may appeal. "Keep calm and negotiate," he urged May, a reference only Britons would get to a stoical World War Two poster that read "Keep Calm and Carry On"..

A tweet during a visit to Zagreb to hear Croatia's views on the divorce from Britain read: "Guess where we are today?" The photo showed him at the quirky Museum of Broken Relationships.

He needled Boris Johnson after May's foreign minister said trade barriers would hurt Italian winemakers: "Enjoying a glass of prosecco in Rome," Barnier tweeted, with a photo from a cafe.

Joking aside, he thinks he can cut a deal. He told French newspaper La Depeche he would go into talks "neither naive nor with preconceptions" and recalled his last major negotiations:

"My strategy was to work with the British and the City ... and not to pass laws against them or without them. So although we're now in a different context, a deal on Brexit is possible."

(Editing by Andrew Roche)

SEOUL/WASHINGTON North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea early on Sunday, the first such test since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected, and his administration indicated that Washington would have a calibrated response to avoid escalating tensions.

BERLIN Former foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was elected Germany's president on Sunday, the 12th person to hold the largely ceremonial post in the post-war era.

BERLIN German authorities on Sunday briefly closed the airport in the northern city of Hamburg after a discharge of a corrosive substance caused eye irritation and breathing difficulties among 50 people in a security check area, a police spokeswoman said.

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Monsieur Brexit - EU's Barnier braces for baffling Brits - Reuters UK

Anne-Marie Trevelyan said the British people felt disempowered and far removed from the political process under the European bloc and called for its reform after the UK leaves.

She said the remaining 27 member states should push to reinstate a purely economic framework instead of its current setup.

Speaking during a debate on Brexit on BBC Radio 4s Any Questions? The Berwick-upon-Tweed MP said the EU had deviated from its original function.

It was set up absolutely in the aftermath of war to try and stabilise Europe and try to help those countries, as theyve joined, to become democracies because democracies are the stable governments framework where every citizen is engaged with their leadership, she said.

GETTY

I think that the point is that the EU has got too big for its boots, bluntly, and its wanting to create a superstate

Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Why is it that the EU which is not the EEC (European Economic Community), which was what was set up isnt working for the British people? And indeed for many others across those states within Europe who are in the EU.

She then accused the European Union of wanting to create a superstate.

I think that the point is that the EU has got too big for its boots, bluntly, and its wanting to create a superstate, said Ms Trevelyan.

For all oflastyear, this sense of disempowerment for something too far away from us as voters, as citizens of the UK, we felt too far removed from the people who are making decisions about the curvature of bananas and any number of other things.

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She said the EU had a role in developing democracies and preserving an economic community but had lost its way.

The EU has migrated far from that and citizens dont like it, the politician added.

The British have led the way and I really hope that the EU 27, if they feel it works for them more than not, will go backwards towards an economic framework, which is not about an EU telling everybody how to run their countries.

Also speaking on the panel was the editor ofpro-EUnewspaper The New European, Matt Kelly, who insisted the European bloc was established to keep ourselves safe.

He said: The European Union was not established to regulate the curvature of a banana, it was established to regulate our propensity in a very violent continent, to stop killing ourselves and to keep ourselves safe and to develop in harmony as a community of nations.

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'EU too big for its boots!' Tory MP rips 'SUPERSTATE' Eurocrats for 'disempowering' UK - Express.co.uk