No idea what you two have been reading. One of the aspects of this is that Barnier has to report to EU member states and EU committees, but Frost only reports to Cummings-Johnson so you only hear what they choose you hear.
Sun and Express identikit headlines? Common source but neither suggests any "blinking".
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1...ier-trade-talks-latest-Brexit-deal-update/amp
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11815447/michel-barnier-rejects-uk-trade-demand-terms-japan/amp/
EESC meeting on Wednesday?
Barnier, who revealed that a total of 400 UK and EU negotiators are involved in the talks, said, “Sometimes I hear people in the UK public debate say that the EU has unreasonable positions. But they are only unreasonable for those who refuse to accept that Brexit has negative consequences for the UK. They are only unreasonable if your starting point is that the EU should not have the sovereign power to define its own conditions for giving generous access to its own market. The EU stance is to protect our interests, to protect our greatest achievement and to limit the economic damage that Brexit inflicts on EU businesses and consumers.”
He even gets specific about benefits we've achieved as members and - some might call this punishment - why the EU doesn't need to help us maintain those benefits.
“During its 47 years of membership, the UK built up a strong position in the EU market in a number of strategic areas: financial services, business and legal services, and also as a regulation and certification hub and a major entry point in the EU single market.
“In great part, this was made possible by the fact that the UK was an EU Member State, within the single market. As it prepares to leave the single market and customs union, we must ask ourselves whether it is really in the EU interest for the UK to retain such a prominent position?
“We cannot allow, and we will not allow, this cherry picking. The UK chose to become a third country and it cannot have the best of both worlds. This is simply not in the overall long-term political and economic interest of the EU.
“Do we really want to consolidate the UK’s position as a certification hub for the EU, knowing that it already controls some 15-20 percent of the EU certification market?
“Do we really want to take a risk with rules of origin that would allow the UK to become a manufacturing hub for the EU, by allowing it to assemble materials and goods sourced all over the world, and export them to the single market as British goods, tariff and quota-free?
“Do we really want the UK to remain a centre for commercial litigation for the EU, when we could attract these services here?”
https://www.theparliamentmagazine.e...ompromise’-break-current-brexit-talks-impasse