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European Union ambassadors will meet this morning to begin reviewing the post-Brexit trade deal signed yesterday by the EU and Britain, an EU spokesperson said.
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, will also brief the ambassadors on the negotiations.
The European Parliament has welcomed the agreement, but will analyze it in detail before deciding whether to approve the agreement in the new year.
The legislative assembly will resume meetings in January, in committee and plenary format, before deciding whether or not to approve the agreement.
The deal that governs post-Brexit trade needs approval from all 27 EU member states.
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The final 2,000-page deal was delayed by a last-minute dispute over fisheries, as both sides haggled over the access EU fishermen will have to British waters after the end of the year.
The deal will preserve Britain’s access to zero tariffs and zero quotas to the 450-million-consumer bloc’s single market, but will not prevent pain and economic disruption for the UK or EU member states.
Many aspects of Britain’s future relationship with the EU remain to be resolved, possibly for years.
The UK formally left the EU on January 31, but has since been in a transition period in which rules on trade, travel and business remained unchanged until the end of this year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had said that since 52% of Britons had voted to leave the EU, he did not want to accept the rules of its single market or its customs union after January 1.
The EU did not want to grant unlimited privileges to a free and deregulated British economy outside the bloc and thus potentially encourage others to leave, resulting in a tortuous negotiation.
“It was a long and winding road,” the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, told reporters yesterday, citing the song by Paul McCartney.
“But we have a lot to prove … We can finally put Brexit behind us and look to the future. Europe is moving forward now.”
The British Parliament will debate and vote on the deal on December 30, just one day before the transition period expires.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin described the agreement as a good compromise and said that the foundations for a harmonious relationship had been laid.
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