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Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has said he believes there will be a Brexit deal on Christmas Eve despite a last minute problem.
In a speech on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Coveney noted that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was going to hold a press conference early this morning, but that did not happen.
There was “a kind of last minute problem” related to the little text of a fishing agreement.
Mr. Coveney noted that the document included 2,000 pages of legal text.
“The EU will insist on doing this absolutely well.
When asked about the problems facing the Irish fishing industry, Coveney said that a deal would not be a disaster for Irish fishing.
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.
On Thursday morning, a UK source said: “They are still fishing.”
Reports have suggested that the UK has offered a deal that will regain the right to land 25% of what the EU currently takes from British waters, gradually over more than five and a half years.
When the battle to turn things around began, French sources claimed that the UK had made “huge concessions”, especially in fishing, an issue of symbolic importance on both sides of the Channel.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been in close contact with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in recent days as high-level efforts to reach an agreement on the line intensified.
The couple were expected to use a call on Christmas Eve to settle the deal.
The EU and Downing Street were about to announce a deal Wednesday night, but that slipped as last-minute disputes continued.
Negotiations continued overnight, prompted by a late pizza delivery.
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