No last-minute EU trade deal
UK TALKS: SOME RULES, PENALTIES UNRESOLVED
Threat of ‘no deal’ divorce mounts in wrangling over fair trade future ties.
Post-Brexit trade talks between the EU and UK reached a decisive point yesterday, with the outcome highly uncertain and the threat of a wrenching “no-deal” divorce mounting by the hour.
Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier briefed ambassadors from EU member states at a pre-dawn crisis meeting after talks with his UK counterpart, David Frost, broke up overnight.
Ireland’s Prime Minister, Micheal Martin, warned the chances for a deal were only “50-50”, while sources close to the talks said Sunday’s horsetrading was slow and expectations were low.
Britain left the EU on 31 January but will exit the EU’s single market at year’s end.
The goal of the negotiations is to establish a trade relationship with zero tariffs and zero quotas in hopes of avoiding major disruptions come 1 January.
Barnier and Frost were expected to resume face-to-face talks later yesterday before reporting back to their bosses, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The two leaders will speak by phone later in the day, a call that might now effectively be an end to the dialogue.
All eyes are on an EU summit on Thursday, when the outline of any deal or an admission of the failure to find one will be put to the bloc’s 27 leaders. A source close to the talks said the situation was “very difficult” and that negotiations were in their “last useful days”.
“We are on a very narrow path and it is impossible to predict the outcome,” the source explained.
Several sources said the hardest issue was how to guarantee fair trade in future ties and establish a quick penalty mechanism if either side were to backtrack on, for example, environmental or health standards.
Britain is reluctant to accept a broad and binding arrangement, seeing it as an infringement on its new-found sovereignty after 47 years of EU membership.
“In essence, if the talks fail now, the two sides didn’t manage to agree what constitutes foul play and what to do about it,” an EU diplomat said.
Johnson has insisted Britain will “prosper mightily” whatever the outcome of the talks, but he will face severe political turbulence if he cannot seal a deal.