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Johnson and von der Leyen’s Brexit dinner in Brussels brought no progress. Now you want to get ready. Emergency measures stipulate that air traffic must be maintained for about six months.
The European Union is preparing for the failure of the negotiations on the Brexit trade pact in order to alleviate the feared chaos at the turn of the year. Among other things, it is about maintaining air and road traffic and fishing, as the Brussels authority announced on Thursday.
“Negotiations are still ongoing, but the end of the transition period is near,” Commission Head Ursula von der Leyen wrote on Twitter. There is no contract guarantee. “We have to be prepared, also for the fact that no contract will go into effect on January 1.”
Transports are still possible for six months.
The emergency measures in this case contain a proposal to maintain certain air connections between Britain and the EU for six months, based on reciprocity with Great Britain. There should also be a transitional rule for the recognition of aircraft safety certificates, so that they do not have to be deregistered from the EU.
There should be a similar mutual regulation to maintain the traffic of goods and passengers, also for six months.
For the politically highly controversial issue of fisheries, the EU Commission proposes a legal framework that should apply until December 31, 2021, or until a fisheries agreement with Great Britain. This agreement is intended to regulate the access of British trawlers to EU waters and vice versa. The Commission will work closely with the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers to bring the regulations into force before 1 January 2021.
Several EU countries had repeatedly urged the Commission to carry out these emergency measures. The Commission delayed this. Now he justified the measure with the great uncertainty of whether a trade agreement will come into force on January 1 that would make these measures unnecessary.
Büsseler dinner to no avail
The three-hour conversation between Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday night in Brussels was not a breakthrough. Rather, both sides continued to find significant differences in the dispute over the Brexit trade pact. The European Union and Great Britain give each other a final deadline on Sunday night.
The negotiating teams must meet again immediately and try to resolve the sticking points within four days. The EU Commission stated: “We have a clear understanding of each other’s position. They are very far apart.” However, at the end of the weekend “a decision will be made,” von der Leyen said after the meeting.
British government circles said it was not yet clear whether a deal would be reached. Prime Minister Johnson wants to leave no stone unturned to test forms of a possible deal.
Hot spots: fishing and fair competition
Johnson and von der Leyen had agreed to have dinner in Brussels to resolve outstanding issues in negotiations on a trade agreement for the period after the expiration of the Brexi-Discuss the transition phase and clarify it if possible. It is about fishing, fair competition and the question of the enforceability of agreements.
It was the third conversation between the two since EU negotiator Michel Barnier and his British colleague David Frost announced last Friday that their negotiating mandate had reached a dead end. After two phone calls had not been as successful, the personal meeting should now give a boost to the negotiations.
opinion
“The Brexit show will continue until Boris Johnson is brave enough to decide whether he wants a deal with Europe, or whether he prefers not to,” he writes. Michael laczynski.
The contract must be in force before December 31
Time is running out. This Thursday and Friday, the heads of state and government of the EU will meet for their last summit of the year. The contract must be in force before December 31, because then it will be executed Brexi-Transition phase off. If an agreement is reached, it should be ratified in the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers of the EU. As it stands, at least one vote on the trade pact is also expected in the British Parliament.
Britain left the EU at the end of January, but everything will remain the same until the turn of the year. Negotiations will take place later. Without a contract, there will be tariffs and other trade hurdles starting January 1. It is feared that this could lead to long traffic jams on the English side of the English Channel and empty shelves in supermarkets. The economy expects great turmoil.
The Irish question has been settled
There was at least one progress on Tuesday: the British government and the EU Commission agreed to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol from the Brexi-Agreement. This largely eliminates the biggest worry in the event that a deal is not reached. The protocol aims to ensure that there is no firm border between British Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU. In this case, a worsening of the conflict was expected in the region of the former civil war.
London had agreed to remove or change controversial passages in a bill that had caused much resentment in Brussels. Under London’s will, the Single Market Act was supposed to nullify the provisions of the Northern Ireland Protocol and thus violate international law.
Chancellor Kurz does not believe in the no-deal scenario
Despite the differences, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) still awaits a trade agreement. “There are still some unanswered questions, but I think that Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson will be able to resolve these last open issues,” Kurz said in an interview with US broadcaster CNN. “I don’t think the UK and Boris Johnson really want a no-deal scenario.”
In the interview leading up to the EU summit that started on Thursday, Kurz defended the EU’s tough stance, which insists on fair competition, also with regard to future EU regulations that the UK should accept in order to continue to have access to the EU internal market. From the EU’s point of view, the British desire not to understand future regulations is not acceptable, Kurz said in the interview.
“The level playing field is one of the open questions, and I think it is probably the most important open point,” Kurz said. “I hope that in the end we will have a solution. I understand the UK’s wish, but I think our position as the European Union is also understandable.” The same rules would also apply to other non-EU countries, such as Norway or Switzerland.
(APA / dpa / Reuters)
