UK will fight for wine in Brexit break-up

The UK may have voted to cut ties with Europe but there are many of its assets that it will be fighting to hang on to, including a slice of its 42,000-bottle wine cellar.

The list of European assets that the UK must extricate itself from in order to leave the EU is long, the UK government will be keen to secure a slice of their wealth post Brexit.

Among them is €60bn of Eurocrat pensions, almost €20bn of European investment bank loans, and, more tantalisingly, a cellar containing 42,000 bottles of wine, Cognac and other spirits.

Currently under control by the EU, the cellar is stocked and maintained to cater for EU functions and entertain visiting dignitaries.

While its inventory is not known, it’s likely to contain rare and expensive bottles from across Europe.

As well as a vast wine and spirits cellar, the EU also controls an art collection, a property portfolio worth €8.7bn – including Margaret Thatcher’s old Conservative party citadel in Westminster – and dozens of space satellites.

All of these assets will have to be haggled over and divided as Brexit negotiations progress.

Retaining a slice of such assets will go some way to lessen the financial damage cause by the UK’s detachment from the EU, with a source involved in the preparations telling the Financial Times: “Of course we will go for the assets.”

While the EU is unlikely to hand a slice of such assets freely, the paper claims that as Britain makes around an eighth of net EU budget contributions, it could in theory be entitled to around 5,000 bottles of wine, 250 bottles of spirits, €2.25m worth of art from the European Parliament’s collection, and around €10m from the book value of the European Court of Justice building.

UK Prime Minister Teresa May is yet to trigger Article 50, which will see negotiations to leave the EU officially begin. Despite pressure to formally trigger the article, May has said she is unlikely to do so this year.

Negotiations from the EU’s side will be overseen by Michel Barnier, the former French foreign minister, who took up his position as the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator on Saturday.