Brexit — Europe’s open skies: No time for soundbite diplomacy

Another day in the Brexit saga, and another round of soundbite diplomacy, with the Taoiseach warning that Irish airspace could be closed to overflying British flights if European Union fishing fleets are kept out of UK waters, to which the hardline Leavers holler blackmail. It is not, clearly, blackmail, but simply a pointer to what could happen if Britain stumbles, if not hurtles, out of the EU without a comprehensive trade settlement with the remaining 27 member states. Yet Mr Varadkar knows all too well that a UK response to such a prohibition could be a tit-for-tat ban on eastbound overflights by Irish carriers. The last thing our continent needs is an internal trade war like the one that’s opened between the United States and the EU.

The Taoiseach is right, however, to turn the spotlight on to the aviation problem, since it is one of the most complicated items on the London-Brussels negotiations agenda, and one that has the potential for inflicting serious damage not only on Britain’s economy but also on those of most of the EU’s 27 states. It is impossible to over-estimate the significance, economic value and scope of the UK’s aviation network; it is Europe’s largest, and the world’s third largest. The British government would not — we assume — be determined to press ahead with a third Heathrow runway, as politically unpopular as that prospect is in London’s outer suburbs, if it suspected that their capital’s status as a major airline hub would be markedly reduced as the inevitable consequence of a stupidly hard Brexit. On the other side of the table, the airlines and governments of EU states have a vested interest in maintaining access to the UK market, both in landing rights and in ensuring that British tourists get to where they want to go in Europe.