The State's former top civil servant in the EU has said she is confident a Brexit deal can be done, because everybody involved wants to make it work.
Speaking at the All-Island Civic Dialogue on Brexit in Dublin Castle on Friday, Catherine Day, who was secretary-general of the European Commission from 2005 until 2015, said the EU had always been "endlessly creative" about finding solutions to the problems it faces.
“We will hammer out something in the end of the day, because that is my experience,” she said.
Ms Day said it was her experience that countries entered negotiations with the EU wanting to do deals, but only on their own terms. Those countries would then have to give ground.
She said she had already spoken to her former colleagues in Brussels on "the issue of the Border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland".
She anticipated there will be no “cliff edge” in two years’ time when the UK exits the union, because many of the issues involved in Brexit will have to be worked out in advance.
Ms Day told the forum there will need to be clarity from day one on the rights of EU citizens living in the UK and of UK citizens living in the EU following Brexit.
She said the UK will not be able to be part of a partial customs union.
“You’re either in it or not,” she said.
She said that many of the technical details of Brexit will be worked out behind the scenes, “and only those with a political dimension will be left to the politicians”.
She likened EU negotiations to “negotiating with 27 mothers-in-law”.
She said she expected that the media will be full of “cliff-hanging stuff [on Brexit] on a regular basis, because there are so many different interests at heart”.
She also said there was a lot of “wishful thinking” going on in the UK that the negotiations can be concluded quickly.
Negotiations
Minister of State for European Affairs Dara Murphy told the forum that the State had more friends in Brussels than we might think, and there were many countries who did not desire a hard negotiation of Brexit.
“We have to remember that the vast majority of people in the EU did not want Brexit to happen,” he said.
“I have been very heartened by the lack of desire to be punitive towards the UK.
“We are not alone in trying to promote a soft departure for the UK.”
Jan Strupczewski, the Reuters deputy bureau chief in Brussels, told the gathering that the notion that the UK could do a trade agreement with the EU in two years was "completely unrealistic".
He said the fastest trade deal agreed by the EU was with South Korea and it took seven years.
He also praised the efficiency of Irish diplomats in Brussels in raising awareness of the unique challenges of Brexit from an Irish perspective
