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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are expected to announce a post-Brexit deal after 24 hours of intense negotiations on the EU’s access to British fishing waters.
In Brussels this morning, the main negotiators were still working to finalize the exact wording of the final treaty at the headquarters of the European Commission to seal an agreement on their future relationship after the end of the post-Brexit transition next week after talks during the night. .
It is understood that agreement has been largely reached on the issues of fair competition and fishing rights.
Johnson has informed his cabinet.
Johnson is planning a press conference after speaking with Ms Von der Leyen, but with the conversations ongoing, the timing is uncertain. A television crew was seen entering 11 Downing Street shortly after 10:30 a.m. M.
Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said he believes there will be a Brexit deal on Christmas Eve despite a “last minute problem” related to the small text of a fishing agreement.
Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Mr. Coveney noted that the document included 2,000 pages of legal text. “The EU will insist on doing this absolutely well.
“I was hoping to be able to speak to you this morning in parallel with the big announcements to be made in both London and Brussels, but we are still looking forward to you later today.”
Johnson and von der Leyen have personally intervened in recent days, holding several phone conversations, in a final attempt to reach an agreement before the UK leaves the single market at the end of the month.
The final stretch of the talks focused on reaching a compromise on fish, a politically contentious issue in Britain and in several EU member states.
According to two people familiar with the matter, Johnson has accepted that the bloc’s share of catches in UK waters should fall by 25 per cent over a period of five and a half years.
Britain had initially sought an 80 percent reduction in just three years, but in recent days had offered a 30 percent reduction.
The bloc had refused to accept a more than 25 percent reduction in the value of fish caught, saying that even that was difficult for countries like France and Denmark to accept, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions.
When asked in Morning Ireland about the problems facing the Irish fishing industry, Mr Coveney said that a deal would not be a disaster for Irish fisheries.
However, he acknowledged that a Brexit deal was not going to end without some impact on fisheries, it was a matter of scope. Ireland had set clear goals to protect itself and hoped they would be achieved in the deal, he said.
Approval of the deal
If the EU ambassadors sign the deal on Thursday, the European Council can agree to apply the deal provisionally from January 1, pending European Parliament approval at the end of next month.
MPs will return to Westminster on December 30 to consider all stages of any necessary implementing legislation in a single day, and the House of Lords is expected to vote on it on the same day.
The European Research Group (ERG) of eurosceptic conservative advocates said late Wednesday that it would examine the details and legal text of any deal “as quickly as possible.” They will reconvene a “star chamber” of attorneys led by veteran Congressman Bill Cash, who delivered his verdict on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in 2019.
“As the new agreement is also very complex, the star chamber will examine it in detail, to make sure that its provisions actually protect the sovereignty of the UK, after we exit the transition period at the end of this year,” they said. in a sentence.
News that a deal was imminent triggered a 1.4 percent rise in the pound against the dollar. Bond yields increased around the world.
Extra bureaucracy
Although an agreement would guarantee tariff and quota free trade between Britain and the EU, Britain’s decision to abandon the single market and customs union means there will be friction and additional bureaucracy for importers and exporters.
When the UK shocked the world in 2016 by voting to leave the EU, many in Europe hoped it could stay closely aligned. But that was not to be. Johnson, the face of the pro-Brexit campaign, claimed that since 52 percent had voted to “regain control” of the EU, they were not interested in accepting the rules of either the single market or the customs union. The EU did not want to grant unlimited privileges to a free and deregulated British economy outside the bloc, potentially encouraging others to leave.
The result was a tortuous negotiation on a “level playing field” in competition, which the EU demanded in exchange for access to its market. If there is an agreement, it will ultimately be a narrow free trade agreement surrounded by other pacts on fisheries, transport, energy and cooperation in justice and police. It won’t cover the financial services that make London the only financial capital to rival New York. Services represent 80 percent of the British economy.
JPMorgan said the EU had secured a deal that allows it to retain almost all of its advantages from trading with the UK, but with the ability to use regulations to “select” between sectors in which the UK has advantages, such as services. . Johnson has been accused of selling out to farmers, especially in Scotland and northern England, after it emerged that seed potatoes will not be included in a post-Brexit trade deal.
Brexit activist Nigel Farage said the deal would keep the UK too aligned with the EU, adding that he hoped this would be the beginning of the end of the bloc. Despite the agreement, merchandise trade will have more rules, more red tape and more costs. There will be some disruption in the ports. Everything from food safety regulation and export standards to product certification will change. The UK, which imports around € 88 billion more a year from the EU than it exports there, fought to the end over fish, important to the small British fishing fleet but worth less than 0.1 per percent of GDP. Access to the EU market for London-based banks, insurers and asset managers is managed outside of the deal and, as of January 1, will be spotty at best.
The Bank of England has said that, even with a trade deal, Britain’s gross domestic product is likely to be hit 1% by Brexit in the first quarter of 2021. And UK budget forecasters have said that the economy will be 4% smaller. more than 15 years than it would have been if Britain had stayed on the bloc.
–Additional reports from Reuters and Bloomberg
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