I think it's a likely scenario. Like Jean-Claude Juncker, I believe that
the odds of a deal between EU and UK are high and it's very easy to get a deal
in kicking the can down the road on a few issues that won't be settled now. So deal
with EU - yes. The problem, as you say, is that it's not a negotiation between EU
and UK, it's a negotiation between UK and UK and that's the part of the negotiation
which is unclear, that's the part of the negotiation which might not unfold,
so the odds of getting a deal with EU is 90%, the odds of getting it through
the House of Commons is probably around 50%. Now the question then is,
what if there is a deal with EU and it doesn't pass in the house, what sort of
transition prolongations does it create? It's been understood that the question
remained the same as it was two years ago, how can you exit the EU politically,
without exiting the EU economically?
Sir, can we ask you about the worst case scenario then, if there is no negotiation
there's no transition it is a hard Brexit, and the UK is forced to rely on WTO rules,
how much of a disaster would it be for this country to rely on those WTO rules,
that you had a hand in creating?
There are degrees in disasters. There are small disasters, medium disasters
and big disasters. Now exiting the internal market is anyhow a sort of
disaster. Building the internal market was good, exiting the internal market is bad
and it has an economic cost and the only issue is whether it's a small, medium,
or big disaster and that depends on the thickness of the border,
when I have to explain Brexit to kids at school, what I say is look, there's UK,
there's EU, there's no border for the moment, we have to put a border.
And the issue is how thick is the border. If it's a thick border, you really exit, but it's very costly,
if you want to reduce the cost, you take a thin border, but you don't really exit,
you know what people here call Brenom, Brexit in a name only, my guess, my view
is that this is going to be the end of this issue, it's going to be Bre-no,
exiting politically as much as possible and economically as little as possible
because the cost, when and how do you get there, which sort of debate, crisis
do we have in between now and this Bre-no result is the only remaining
question in my view and that's tough, because it also leaves aside things
that should be very easily settled, I mean things like cooperation
in security matters, police, cybercrime, whatever,
this is a no-brainer. The notion that UK universities and academics will remain
in the European research area is a total no-brainer, so these things which are
easy, which need to be done for the moment are waiting for the resume to
find the necessary compromise and this will take time.
Just before we let you go, I can ask you quickly about how political traders
will now become, we've just discussed two very big issues, the U.S. trading
relationship and now Brexit, you've also called for a change to some of the rules
and a rethink of WTO, what sort of changes would you make in this
political environment when trade is such a big-ticket item and domestic politics
is so entwined now in global trading, what changes would you actually make?
I think the changes that need to take place are one at domestic level,
improve your social systems so that...
So spend more money?
So that all change will bring regulation, all labor market regulation, it is not always
about money but it probably is about, for instance, investing much more in education,
in training and that probably means money or better use of money, so
there is the huge domestic part which has generated this backlash against
globalization, trade opening, although mostly by the U.S. for a moment,
and then you've got to fix a number of international issues and we level
the playing field between emerging countries and more traditional,
industrialized country and fixing this, you know, this old problem we have
notably in WTO, that WTO knows about developed economies on the one side,
and developing economies on the other side, you are either on the one side,
or the other, now this is wrong, is China a rich country with many poor,
or a poor country with many rich is an issue which diplomats can discuss like
the sex of angels for ages, the reality is that we need to re-level the playing field.