Yahoo Finance Michel Barnier warns UK it faces cliff-edge 'no deal' Brexit
The UK risks a cliff edge "no deal" withdrawal from the EU if it "wastes" more time before beginning its Brexit negotiations, the European Union's chief Brexit negotiator has warned.
Michel Barnier, whose department within the European Commission has spent months preparing for Brexit, said: "I can't negotiate with myself.
"My preoccupation is that time is passing, it is passing quicker than anyone believes because the subjects we have to deal with are extraordinarily complex," he said in an interview with a select group of European newspapers including Britain's Financial Times.
The interview is Mr Barnier's first since being appointed the European Union's point man on Brexit.
Theresa May's disastrous election result has thrown the Brexit negotiations into question with no clear sense of when they will begin or what sort of Brexit and future relationship the UK is now seeking.
Prior to the election, Mrs May had said that the UK would be leaving the single market and the customs union and she repeatedly insisted that "no deal is better than a bad deal".
Since the election, her reappointed Brexit Secretary David Davis, who told Sky News that the negotiation start date may have to be delayed, has said that the "no deal better than bad deal" slogan still stands but said that the government would listen to those calling for a softer Brexit.
However, in his interview, Mr Barnier sounded increasingly impatient with the UK, saying: "I don't know what hard Brexit or soft Brexit means. I read yesterday 'Open Brexit' too! Brexit is withdrawal from the EU - it's the UK's decision. We're implementing it."
The negotiation start date was due to be Monday or Tuesday this coming week but is now likely to be delayed because of the timing of the Queen's Speech, itself delayed because of the Conservative Party's quest to reach a political deal domestically with Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party.
"Next week, it will be three months after the sending of the Article 50 letter," Mr Barnier said, referencing the UK's formal withdrawal notification letter.
"We haven't negotiated, we haven't progressed. Thus we must begin this negotiation. We are ready as soon as the UK itself is ready."
The UK's top civil servant on Brexit, Olly Robbins, was in Brussels on Monday for background talks with his EU counterparts.
Along with Sir Tim Barrow, the British ambassador to the EU, Mr Robbins held preliminary discussions about the impending negotiations with Mr Barnier.
It is not known how fruitful the talks were, but sources close to Mr Barnier have told Sky News that the two sides have agreed to have further contact at later this week.
As of yet, it is understood that no date for opening the formal negotiations has been agreed.
Under the "no deal, cliff edge" withdrawal, the UK would leave the EU and implement World Trade Organisation rules which would mean tariffs on goods exported from the UK to the EU - which amount to 44% of UK outward trade.
Cars, for example, would be subject to a 10% tariff, liquefied natural gas would be tariffed 4.1% and wheat products just under 13%.
Across the board it could make UK manufactures less competitive than EU counterparts who sell the same products.
Free trade deals with countries outside the EU would, to an extent, mitigate the EU tariffs but would take significant time to secure.
In Strasbourg where members of the European Parliament are holding the monthly plenary, MEPs seem broadly frustrated and impatient by Britain's domestic politics and the delay they are causing.
There is a common acceptance across the political spectrum, across the EU institutions and across European capitals that Brexit is now inevitable and a broad sense that it needs to be implemented to remove uncertainty on both sides.
One key player on the EU side told Sky News: "Everybody had thought: as of now we are on a roller coaster with some crisis but at least the end point is a withdrawal treaty and uncertainty should evaporate over time. I think now we are in a longer period of uncertainty.
"The name of the game is a withdrawal treaty with a deal because ultimately no deal is bad for us and it is catastrophic for the UK. No one is laughing," the EU source told Sky News.
