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Another three weeks and the year ends, and the Brexit transition period ends. What will relations between Britain and the European Union be like after that? There should have been a deal a long time ago, but there are still serious differences, and both sides are still discussing a trade deal for the post-Brexit period. Michel Barnier, the representative of the European side, wants to make a decision before the last ordinary EU summit of the year on Thursday and Friday.
In a briefing for MEPs, he said that according to participants, the negotiations could continue until this Wednesday. This was reported by the dpa news agency and the Irish station RTE, among others. After a short break, Barnier has been negotiating with his British colleague David Frost again in Brussels since Sunday. There are still three key issues at stake in the negotiations:
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fair competitive conditions
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Control of a future agreement
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Fishing rights of EU fishermen in UK waters
London rules out negotiations until next year
The British side wavers between the will to speak and the threats of deadlines. “We are ready to negotiate while there is time if we believe an agreement is still possible,” said a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson. However, with a view to extending the talks until next year, he emphasized: “That I can rule out.” If the EU does not give in on the points in dispute, from Johnson’s point of view “it is not possible to reach an agreement,” the spokesman said. .
The UK has already made clear several times that it refuses to extend the transition period after Brexit, the spokesperson said. When asked, he also ruled out continuing negotiations into the new year on the basis of an interim agreement with the EU to avoid a hard rift between the two sides.
Brexit opponents hoped that if current talks failed with such a solution, a no-deal Brexit could be avoided.
Britain left the EU on February 1. However, it will remain in the EU internal market and in the customs union until the end of the year. In fact, both parties wanted to use this transition phase to negotiate a trade agreement. The talks have barely advanced for months. Meanwhile, the time for a timely ratification of a possible agreement before January 1 is extremely short.
In view of the complicated situation, the president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and Johnson wanted to discuss the prospects of new negotiations on Monday afternoon.
EU Parliament: The leader of the left-wing parliamentary group sees a high “probability of not reaching an agreement”
Due to the enormous pressure of time, Brexit experts in the European Parliament are increasingly angry. “That the parliament has to buy a pig in one go is completely unacceptable,” said the leader of the left-wing parliamentary group Martin Schirdewan of the dpa news agency. There are demands to accept a no-contract breakup by the end of the year and then reschedule negotiations without time pressure, Schirdewan said. “I don’t think it’s the worst way to go when you see that so far only a bad deal seems possible.”
Schirdewan belongs to the Brexit coordination group in the EU Parliament and was briefed on Monday by EU negotiator Barnier on the status of the negotiations. “The probability of not negotiating is greater than the probability of negotiating,” says Schirdewan. Even if the negotiations were immediately successful, an official version of the contract could not be brought to parliament until December 23. If it takes a few more days, the first date would be December 27. That does not allow for a full examination. “I think that’s very troublesome,” Schirdewan said.
Hope for an agreement on the internal market law
In parallel talks on Britain’s controversial internal market law, progress was made on Monday. The London government agreed to remove the contentious clauses on Northern Ireland. The prerequisite is that there is a final agreement on the solutions discussed in these discussions in the coming days, he said. There were “constructive” talks between British Secretary of State Michael Gove and EU Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic on the implementation of the existing exit agreement.
The talks between Gove and Sefcovic refer to the already approved treaty between London and the EU on Britain’s exit from the EU. This was already completed at the beginning of the year.
