Negotiators from the UK and the EU set out to resume talks on the deal amid an ongoing deadlock on several key issues.
The UK and the European Union have just hours to navigate the very narrow path to a trade deal that would prevent the most turbulent end of the Brexit crisis in less than two weeks, said EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
“This is the moment of truth,” Barnier told the European Parliament in Brussels on Friday. “There is a possibility of reaching an agreement, but the path to that agreement is very narrow.”
“We are in a very serious and bleak situation,” he said. “We have very little time left, just a few hours to work on these negotiations in a useful way if we want this agreement to go into effect on January 1st.”
Negotiators from the UK and the EU are ready to resume talks on the post-Brexit trade deal amid an ongoing stalemate on several key issues that threaten to ruin their efforts.
Friday’s negotiations come less than two weeks before the UK finally leaves the bloc’s orbit on December 31, and follows recent warnings from London and Brussels that they were more likely to fail to reach a deal.
The so-called transition period, during which the UK has remained in the single market and the EU customs union, despite having formally left the bloc in January, comes to an end at the end of this year.
Both parties have said they are eager to reach an agreement before then to avoid a messy divorce on January 1, but those ambitions have been hampered by disagreement over fishing rights, competition rules and governance of any agreement.
“It is a very serious situation. We will try all routes to seek a free trade agreement with the European Union, but we cannot do it at the expense of our national sovereignty, “British Schools Minister Nick Gibb told UK broadcaster Sky News on Friday.
“The EU will have to move if we are to secure that deal,” he said, adding that the UK was “prepared for a no-deal free trade deal.”
Gibb echoed a similar message from British chief negotiator David Frost and Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spoke with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday night to assess the situation.
Johnson’s office said time was running out and warned that a no-deal scenario was “very likely” unless the EU changed its position “substantially”.
Von der Leyen, for his part, said that “substantial progress” had been made on various issues, but also warned that bridging the differences that separate the two sides in other areas, particularly fishing, would be “very challenging.”
Johnson has made fishing and UK control over its waters a key demand in the Brexit saga, which began in June 2016 when the British voted by a narrow margin to leave the bloc and, in the words of Brexit supporters Brexit, “regain control”. of the borders and laws of the country.
Any failure to reach an agreement would likely result in an economic blow to both parties, a major disruption at the border points between the UK and the EU and political acrimony.
Such a scenario would see the pair breach World Trade Organization (WTO) rules as of January 1, bringing financial fees, quotas and other regulatory barriers into play and potentially affecting hundreds of billions of pounds in annual trade between the UK and the EU.
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