Brussels ‘does not believe’ PM’S threat over trade talks

BREXIT negotiations will continue even if a deal is not reached by Boris Johnson’s Oct 15 deadline, Michel Barnier has informed EU ambassadors.

Senior EU diplomats said Brussels simply did not believe the Prime Minister’s threat to walk out of trade talks if a deal was not “in sight” by Thursday’s European Council summit.

“Negotiations will continue. It is not a deadline,” a senior EU diplomat said yesterday.

Negotiations closed in London yesterday and will resume in Brussels early next week. Talks are expected to continue right up until Thursday afternoon. Diplomatic sources said that the summit could be a launch pad for intensive tunnel talks but only if sufficient progress was made on the major obstacles to a deal next week.

The sides are still divided over the level playing field, especially subsidy law, and the enforcement of the deal.

The diplomat said Mr Barnier needed “a bit more” before beginning secret, intensive “tunnel” or “submarine” talks.

The EU has set a deadline of the end of October. It says that the agreement must be finalised by then to ensure there is time to ratify it before Jan 1, when the UK leaves the single market and customs union. The senior EU diplomat said he did not believe fisheries would be “a major impediment” even though Mr Barnier has told ambassadors Brexit means they will lose some of their share of the catch.

Belgium has said it will invoke a 1666 charter by King Charles II, granting 50 men of Bruges the eternal right to fish British waters.