UK ‘disappointed’ after EU drops promise of intensified trade talks

BRITAIN’S chief Brexit negotiator said he was “disappointed” that European Union leaders dropped their commitment to intensified trade negotiations at a Brussels summit last night.

Boris Johnson will make a statement today about whether he will carry out his threat to walk out of trade talks and prepare to trade on World Trade Organisation terms with the EU from Jan 1 after the end of the transition period.

Rather than give into the Prime Minister’s demands for daily talks, EU leaders called for negotiation to merely “continue” and urged the European Commission to step up its planning for no deal. In response, Lord Frost said he was “surprised [the] EU is no longer committed to working ‘intensively’” to reach a trade agreement and accused Brussels of “an unusual approach to conducting a negotiation”.

For a deal to be in sight, EU leaders said the UK had to perform “the necessary moves to make an agreement possible”. This involved concessions on fishing and the level playing field guarantees, and the enforcement of the deal at a summit held on the Prime Minister’s Oct 15 deadline.

Lord Frost, whose advice will be influential in Mr Johnson’s final decision, posted on Twitter that he was, “also surprised by [the] suggestion that to get an agreement all future moves must come from the UK”.

In a joint summit statement the heads of state and government urged the European Commission to step up planning for no deal. Earlier drafts of the summit conclusions demanded “intensified negotiations” before the EU’S deadline of the end of October but that was watered down yesterday morning.

Michel Barnier, the EU chief negotiator, attempted to mitigate the damage and said he would meet British negotiators in London next week. UK sources said that was still to be confirmed. “The negotiations aren’t over. We want to

give these negotiations every chance to be successful. I shall say to David Frost we are prepared to speed up negotiations in the next few days,” Mr Barnier said.

Emmanuel Macron warned that he would never sacrifice French fishermen for a trade deal. The French president demanded continued access to UK’S fishing waters next year and said that the UK had to submit to the bloc’s “conditions”.

“We didn’t choose Brexit,” Mr Macron said. “It’s the British people’s choice.”

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor said: “We want a deal but obviously not at any price. It has to be a fair agreement that serves the interests of both sides. This is worth every effort.”

German government sources have pointed out that a “no deal” Brexit would mean that the EU would lose all its fishing opportunities, instead of just some.

However, Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of landlocked Luxembourg, said the EU was united behind Mr Macron’s demands. He said: “Fishing is not the main priority of my country but it would be crazy to say we don’t care. The EU is a club.”

Ursula von der Leyen, who held talks with Mr Johnson on Wednesday night, said a lot of “good work” had been done in the negotiations so far.

The European Commission president left the summit early to self-isolate after a member of her staff tested positive for Covid-19, though Mrs Von der Leyen said she had tested negative.

EU leaders discussed the Brexit negotiations in detail for two and a quarter hours, with each country’s leader taking the floor in turn for their first full debate on the issue this year.

Charles Michel, the European Council president repeated the bloc’s demand for Britain to drop clauses in the Internal Market Bill, which overrides the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

Senior EU diplomats predicted that if the UK made concessions another emergency summit could be called in mid-november to give political blessing to the agreement.