U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May faces a daunting array of demands from European Union nations when the time comes to negotiate Britain’s future relationship with the bloc, an analysis of the region’s 27 other members shows.

The Bloomberg survey, based on responses from ministries, public comments from government officials and interviews with policy makers, reveals European leaders are laying down their own red lines as May’s team weighs what it wants to seek in the Brexit talks.

The result is a complex patchwork of priorities -- from fishing to shipping, an insistence on freedom of movement to the sovereignty of Gibraltar -- that may run counter to what the U.K. wants to achieve. May will still have to seek to satisfy at least some of them if she is to meet her commitment of making a success of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

“Clearly there are going to be different issues raised by all the different sides,” said Stephen Booth, co-director of Open Europe, a London-based research group. “The EU is ultimately a compromise of national interests so whatever the U.K. gets in the end will be that.”

Seven weeks since voters in the U.K. chose to quit the EU, Bloomberg News reporters in each of the region’s capitals have compiled the first comprehensive look at the main topics the 27 other governments want to raise in the negotiations. Two years of formal talks won’t begin until May invokes Article 50 of the bloc’s Lisbon Treaty.

David Fuller's view

The EU’s remaining 27 countries all have different views on Brexit and the equivalent of their own shopping lists for negotiations.  That is obviously a recipe for chaos. 

I hope the UK government decides to leave the EU quickly, in line with Patrick Minford’s views which I posted on Monday.  If Theresa May can avoid a row with Lords, I think she would then have a much stronger hand in dealing with the EU.