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international finances
Reuters staff
Reuters, Brussels / London, Nov 27: The EU’s main representative for Brexit negotiations, Michel Barnier, will travel to London on Friday night to make a final push for the Brexit trade deal. The two sides are trying to solve the fishery. And competition policy.
At present, there are only five weeks left until Britain officially withdraws from the European Union. Both parties are calling on each other to adjust their positions to remove obstacles to concluding a trade deal, in order to prevent the five-year Brexit crisis from ending in chaos.
After a member of Barnier’s team tested positive for the new coronavirus last week, face-to-face negotiations were forced to suspend and are now about to resume.
Barnier said: “In accordance with Belgian regulations, both my team and I have abandoned the quarantine period. We can continue face-to-face negotiations … tonight we will go to London to continue negotiations.”
A source told Reuters that Barnier told a closed-door meeting of diplomats in Brussels that he could not say whether he could reach a new trade deal with Britain in time.
The talks remain stalled on three main issues, namely guarantees of fair competition, supervision and fishing, but so far neither side has shown the willingness to make enough concessions to make progress.
A senior EU diplomat told Reuters that Barnier said there were still differences on these three most controversial issues.
The diplomat also said that, judging by Barnier’s speech, the talks “are not overly optimistic.”
European Commission President Von der Lein said on Wednesday that while the tortuous Brexit negotiations have made “real progress,” the European Union is ready for Britain to leave the European Union without reaching a new trade deal. (End up)
