Showdown for Boris to smash brick wall in EU trade talks
BORIS Johnson will use a showdown with three European presidents later this month to help force a breakthrough in a post-Brexit trade deal after talks yesterday hit a brick wall.
The fourth round of virtual negotiations ended in bitter deadlock with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier accusing the Prime Minister of “backtracking” on his pledges.
UK chief negotiator David Frost said “positive” negotiations will go on but admitted: “Progress remains limited.”
Mr Johnson is expected to video-call European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, European Council president Charles Michel and European Parliament president DavidMaria Sassoli in a fortnight.
Britain previously threatened to walk away from talks at the end of June if there was not sufficient progress. That would mean that when the transition period, which continues all EU laws, finishes on December 31, there will be no trade deal in place.
But both sides said yesterday they could continue through the summer if needed.
A senior UK official said negotiations would carry on into July but warned: “We are not up for a long negotiation well into the autumn where nobody knows what is going to happen.
“October is too late for us to conclude this. We need to work intensively now to see if we can find the high level trade-offs that unlock a deal within all our important negotiating parameters.”
But Mr Barnier claimed the UK is rowing back on promises in the Political Declaration, a key document agreed last year between the sides.
He said talks could technically continue to October 31 and he hoped for “some common ground” by autumn.
But he also warned: “We are moving towards the moment of truth.”
Mr Barnier said there were “serious areas of blockage” including on fishing, police and security co-operation as well as the so-called “level playing field” on trade rules.
He added: “This week there have been no significant areas of progress.”
The Frenchman said the UK’s insistence on its own fishing rules, barring the EU freely operating in UK waters in favour of an annual quota system, was “not even technically possible”.
Mr Frost said: “Progress remains limited but talks have been positive in tone. We are close to reaching the limits of what we can achieve through the format of remote formal rounds.
“If we are to make progress, it is clear that we must intensify and accelerate our work.”
He suggested Britain could accept tariffs on a “small number” of goods – such as some agricultural products – if the EU dropped its demands for a “level playing field”. He added: “That fell slightly on stony ground but it is still in the discussions.”