European parliament wants special access for UK after Brexit, report says

The European Parliament wants the EU to soften its stance on Brexit and negotiate an agreement that would give the UK special access to the single market, according to a report.

The parliament, led by chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt, is compiling a 60-paragraph document putting the case for an “associate agreement” with the UK, Business Insider reported. The declaration would be a break from the hard-line position taken by the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Under the plan, after Britain leaves the EU it would have “privileged” access to the single market and membership of EU agencies. The Parliament intends to put the resolution to its Brexit steering group around 8 March before it is approved by in mid-March.

Verhofstadt wants to concentrate on “overall structures” instead of referring to existing models such as the Canada option, the report said. Such an approach would be a more pragmatic line from Verhofstadt and deviate from Barnier’s use of past deals to show Britain’s case for a special arrangement is not viable.

The pound rose against the euro in response to the report and was worth €1.1331 at 12:52 GMT.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said: “This kind of bespoke deal is exactly what the pair (the EU and UK) need, an acknowledgement of their shared history and mutual dependency, and the fact it comes from arch-federalist Verhofstadt gives it extra weight. Is sanity about to prevail?"

The parliament’s plan, shown to UK MPs in recent days, emerged as the Brexit secretary, David Davis, said Britain would not scrap regulatory standards to compete with the EU after Brexit. He said Brexit would not plunge Britain into a “Mad Max-style dystopian” free for all.