Hopes high for UK, EU to continue trade talks

The European Union has sent a clear message to the United Kingdom that it is prepared to comply with conditions set by London for talks to resume about a free-trade agreement.

The negotiations have continued intermittently ever since the UK left the bloc at the end of January but looked to have ground to a halt on Friday when a deadline for significant progress set by Prime Minister Boris Johnson passed.

Johnson subsequently said there was no point getting back around the negotiating table unless Brussels was prepared to accelerate the speed of the talks and start discussing the detailed legal texts of a proposed free-trade agreement.

After a video call with David Frost, the UK’s chief negotiator,

Michel Barnier, the EU’s top negotiator, took to Twitter on Monday to announce that Brussels was indeed prepared to start talking about detailed legal treaty texts, and to “intensify” talks.

The Financial Times said the message could signal the start of the final stage of the long and fraught negotiations. The paper said it is now far more likely that face-to-face negotiations will resume in London this week.

Before Barnier’s tweet, Frost had tweeted that the conversation between them had been “constructive”. But he said: “The EU still needs to make a fundamental change in approach to the talks and make clear it has done so.”

London later welcomed Barnier’s message.

The Financial Times said a senior British official told it: “We are hoping that talks can begin again in the second half of this week.”

Before that happens, Barnier and Frost were expected to talk again by phone.

If the two sides fail to find a trade deal, the UK is expected to revert to trading with the bloc under World Trade Organization rules, something many UK businesses have said would be disastrous for the nation’s economy because of the additional tariffs it will incur, and because of anticipated delays at the border.

Disagreement on details

But while both London and Brussels have said they want a free-trade deal, they have disagreed on details, including the extent to which they will have access to each other’s fishing grounds, and the ways in which governments will be allowed to financially support businesses.

Currently, the UK and the EU are continuing to enjoy frictionless and tariff-free trade because the nation remains in a transitional phase until Dec 31, which means it is treated as if it were still a member of the bloc.

The EU has offered the UK the option of extending that phase while trade talks continue but London has rejected the idea, bowing to pressure from hard-line lawmakers who insist the nation must fully leave the bloc without delay.

The BBC noted the talks have been prickly at times because the UK believes the EU has failed to respect its independence. Downing Street released a statement on Monday saying Brussels needed to seek an agreement “between sovereign equals”.

Each side has also accused the other of dragging its feet in the talks, and of being responsible for the lack of progress so far.