a few points about what is and what is not in the interest of the EU

1/ of course everything being equal, a good relationship with the UK is in the interest of the EU

2/ however, there needs to be a quid pro quo in terms of market access — the closer the access the closer the alignment

3/ the main work on the alignment has to be done by the external partner (aka the UK), both because of the precedent, and because UK can’t have more influence over EU internals than any of the Member States

4/ EU needs to manage complexity; highly customised close trade deals become unmanageable very quickly — better to go for off-the-shelf agreements

5/ an exception to 4/ is if (a) it is in the EU’s interest, and (b) there is an idea of convergence; the Ukraine deal is complex but the main reason for that is EU demands

6/ there needs to be a clear distinction between being in an being out, which limits the number of possible in-between models

6a/ in particular the EU cant just come up with an in-between model for every MS who wants to leave; comes back to complexity, but also it is a waste of everybody’s time

7/ it might not be in the interest of the EU to allow the the UK into the EFTA pillar of the EEA; the EEA agreement is not robust enough for that.

8/ an important one: whenever an EU country has to compromise on something here there is an incentive to push the cost to the UK

example: “look we really cant get X for you; but what about you nibble a bit off Gibraltar?”