Brexit: UK must not be better off outside EU, warns French Senate report

The report says Theresa May’s keynote Brexit speech at Lancaster House was a ‘mixture of veiled threats and pledges of goodwill’

Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former French Prime Minister, chaired the report (Getty)

Britain must not be better off outside the European Union after Brexit, an eight-month inquiry by the French Senate has concluded.

The 51-page document also says Theresa May’s keynote Brexit speech at Lancaster House was a “mixture of veiled threats and pledges of goodwill” – a likely reference to the Prime Minister’s threat to take Britain out of the EU with no deal, rather than a bad deal.

The report adds that the EU’s four freedoms – goods, people, services and capital – are “inseparable” and it must not be possible for Britain to segment access to the tariff-free single market for certain sectors. “It is on this issue that the Senate will be very vigilant,” the report warns.

The report suggests that the divorce terms of Brexit have to be completed before negotiations over Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU commence. But the UK’s final agreement must not place it in a better position outside the EU, it adds.

Last week Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a former French premier who chaired the inquiry, said: “From a European point of view ... the new agreements cannot be better than the old ones – which might be difficult for the United Kingdom side to accept – while at the same time protecting the EU’s joint interests, notably on security and defence.”

The report says that Brexit is a shock to European cohesion but the process, which it claims is now “inevitable”, must not take the European project “hostage” and says unity of the 27 other EU states is a priority.

It comes after a senior German politician warned that Britain’s exit from the EU will be “mission impossible” and create “a lot of damage” for the UK. MEP Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament, said the process of Brexit would not be an easy task.

Speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg alongside the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, the German MEP said: “When I have a look at the content and the topics on the table, for me it is still mission impossible ahead of us but we can manage this.”

Mr Weber added: “This will create a lot of damage, especially for the Brits, for sure, nobody had the wish to do this but it is the reality. We have to start to recognise this. This will not be an easy task ahead of us, especially having in mind to defend the interests of the European Union.

“It will be a mirror, from my point of view, to show the people in the European Union that it is much more better to reform the European Union than to destroy the European Union.

“It will show what Europe is all about.

“None of the British politicians ever explained to people in Great Britain what is Europe, nobody. And with Brexit everybody will understand this, in a negative way.”