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The European Union and the United Kingdom are rushing to close a trade deal before breaking up for Christmas, and the two sides are getting closer on the pending fish issue.
An EU official indicated that a deal was imminent. “We are in the final phase now,” the official said.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has stayed at headquarters in Berlaymont to try to get the deal done before Christmas Eve, ticking phone calls between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and member states of the European Union.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin told RTÉ Today with Claire Byrne that fish was the final hurdle in the negotiations and that if an agreement was reached today or tomorrow, officials would be working on the text on Christmas Day.
“We are all on hold,” Martin said. “Ultimately, given the progress that has been made, there should be an agreement, and failure to reach an agreement would be a terrible shock to the economic system.”
The EU has offered to give up 25 per cent of the roughly € 650 million of fish stocks its vessels catch in British waters, an increase from a previous bidding position of which 18 per cent was the maximum that could be considered.
But British negotiators have responded with a 35 percent demand, and pelagic fish are treated separately, raising fears that Irish mackerel and herring fleets are at a disproportionate risk of losing.
Officials caution that those percentages are fluid, and intense talks continue to try to find a landing ground that will allow negotiators to return home on Christmas Day.
The fact that the two sides are still locked in negotiations just hours before the Commission buildings should, in theory, be closed and blocked for the holidays is seen as a sign that both sides believe a deal may be close.
“They are still talking so things are moving,” said an EU diplomat.
The legal drafting and scrutiny of any agreement by member states would also take time and is putting additional pressure on the talks.
All hopes of ratifying the agreement through the European Parliament have been abandoned as there is not enough time left, meaning that member states would have to agree to apply the terms “ provisionally ” as of January 1 to avoid having to impose tariffs on trade. Parliament could vote at the end of the month to stamp its approval on the deal.
A deal would prevent the worst damage from a change to the default terms of the World Trade Organization, but it would still mean barriers to trade between the UK and the EU that did not exist before.
Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has warned companies that they expect “a few weeks” of disruption to trade passing through Britain and has urged carriers to opt for direct ferry routes to the mainland as the end of the period transition coincides with the outage due to Covid. -19.
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