Right after the Brexit letter was presented to the President of the European Council Donald Tusk gave out a speech suggesting that the EU is not looking to punish the UK for leaving; however, subsequent actions and war of words strongly suggest that such may not be the case after all.

Within days, it became clear that Spain is actually working to snatch the Gibraltar from the United Kingdom using the Brexit as a tool. For 300 years, Gibraltar has remained a thorn in the relations between the UK and Spain and the latter would use Brexit to pull out that thorn in its favor. If anyone is looking to ignore the Gibraltar matter because it’s a 300-year old issue, one should just hear or read the comments of Manfred Weber, an influential German MEP in the European parliament. He confirmed that Gibraltar remains as a bargaining chip in the upcoming negotiations as said that this is what happens when one country chooses to leave the EU. He stressed that the UK is now alone.

Mr. Weber laid out seven demands or negotiating stance or red lines for the upcoming negotiations,

• The EU is not for sale and Britain should make no attempts for a divide and conquer approach. “We will never allow a division of our citizens into first and second class citizens. Citizenship is not a thing that we can play…that they can use in some kind of a power game.”   
• EU parliament would firmly stand behind the Northern Ireland peace process and would not allow any deal that could endanger it.
• With regard to the tax cut threat from the UK, he said that EU would not accept any Singapore style model.
• The Euro-clearing business needs to be removed from London to EU-soil.
• The UK Government must agree to pay any bill it is presented with by Brussels in full before the negotiations proper can start.
• UK Government and its MEPs must effectively abdicate from the decision-making process and not vote on issues affecting the future of the other 27 countries.
• Any attempt by the British to start parallel talks on the divorce and trade, rather than respecting the framework set by Michel Barnier, would be a deal breaker.

There are every possibility that the negotiations would turn out uglier than many predicted. However, a Le Pen win in the upcoming French election could make a big difference.