There's an interesting analysis by Andrew Byrne (in today's Sunday Times) of exactly why Salzburg turned out to be such a disaster for May - and it was all her own fault.It's at https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/salzburg-ambush-was-provoked-by-cherry-picker-may-3tbfmgkj0 but to save accessing it, this is what Byrne says:Salzburg ‘ambush’ was provoked by cherry-picker MayIf it was an ambush, it wasn’t a very discreet one. The road to Salzburg had been lined with warnings. The summit agenda wasn’t even focused primarily on Brexit, but rather on migration. Yet the British pressed on regardless.So when the EU 27 leaders did get around to discussing Brexit in Theresa May’s absence, they were not in a giving mood.They had turned up in Mozart’s birthplace prepared to offer her warm words if little else. Accounts of their private lunch on Thursday, however, reveal that by then their alarm at the UK’s approach had hit a sullen note.“People around the table can see what the UK is trying to do,” said one negotiator. “It’s very transparent and it won’t work.”Leaders believe May has not listened to their objections to Chequers and that she is instead focused on pointless efforts to divide them and undermine their negotiator, Michel Barnier.“How many times do we have to tell them that cherry-picking isn’t going to work?,” a top-level negotiator vented.The summit started off well enough. People familiar with May’s comments to the EU 27 over dinner on Wednesday said other leaders appreciated her tone.“She seemed sincere — she said she understood why they distrusted her ideas and then tried to tackle the objections one by one,” said one person watching the dinner closely.But things quickly declined. Reports emerged on Thursday that Liam Fox was planning to slash food standards to give UK producers an advantage, setting EU diplomats’ teeth on edge.Officials began to sense an unexpected hardness in the UK position — and as the summit went on they decided that May needed a reality check.An even bigger misstep came on Thursday morning, when May bluntly told the Irish taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, there would be no solution for the northern Irish backstop protocol — the essential pre-condition for a divorce agreement — by the next summit in October.EU diplomats have always feared the UK would defer and delay new proposals on the Irish backstop until the last minute, increasing pressure for the EU to concede on parts of the future relationship.Time and again, they say, they have been promised specific, new proposals by the UK, only to be later disappointed. May’s comments on Thursday sounded like yet more procrastination.Even worse, she appeared to try once more to separate the border question from the main talks and sideline Barnier’s officials.“Can we not sit down together and have our officials work this out directly?” she had asked Varadkar on previous occasions, according to one person familiar with the encounters. Now she tried again.If Salzburg had a turning point, this was it. Varadkar and Emmanuel Macron, the French president, met directly after the exchange and discussed the troubling picture that was emerging. A stronger message would have to be sent.Perhaps most unhelpful was the comment on Thursday morning by Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister, that the EU was split in two camps over Brexit and that he led a “good cop” faction that wanted a “fair Brexit”.Orban had laid it on thick on Wednesday night, bowing and kissing May’s hand at dinner. But behind closed doors, in the lunch discussion among the EU 27 on Thursday, he did not say a word. There was no internal dissent. The only effect of his public comments was to sharpen the 27’s resolve to put on a firm, united front.At the lunch, they had their first chance to compare notes on the UK government’s strategy. What emerged was a picture of British attempts to sideline Barnier and appeal above his head to national capitals.“The UK needs to stop going around all the capitals of Europe and start spending more time negotiating in Brussels,” said a participant.“This strategy of going around Barnier has really backfired,” said one person familiar with the discussion. “The leaders respect him, he keeps in contact with all the capitals, he keeps their officials updated.”Experienced leaders warned they had been burnt by British negotiators before. One prime minister recalled the time spent crafting the doomed agreement on free movement for David Cameron that involved late night negotiations and ultimately ended in failure.They could not afford to let the UK run down the clock and then force through a hastily drafted agreement that might not even work, several leaders argued.One person familiar with the discussion said: “This is a legal treaty — you can’t just rush it out at midnight.”Now, both sides have a shortened calendar to bring forward new proposals. “Things will move very quickly after [the Tory] conference,” said one negotiator. An emergency November summit is in the offing, but only if good progress is made in October. Time is running out.
Richard Carter ● 2493d