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LONDON: Britain and the European Union were on the verge of reaching a close trade deal on Thursday (December 24), stepping away from a chaotic end to the Brexit split that has dealt a blow to the 70-year attempt to forge unity. European from the ruins of WWII.
While a last-minute deal would prevent the bitterest end of the Brexit divorce, the UK is heading for a much more distant relationship with its biggest trading partner than almost anyone expected at the time of the 2016 Brexit vote.
Sources in London and Brussels said a deal was close as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a late-night conference call with his high-ranking cabinet of ministers, and negotiators in Brussels pored over stacks of legal trade texts.
“The work will continue throughout the night,” said the spokesman for the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, Eric Mamer.
“All Brexit watchers are advised to get some sleep at this time. Hopefully it will be an early start tomorrow morning,” Mamer said.
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There was no official confirmation of a deal, but a press conference was expected in London on Thursday morning, just seven days before the UK turns its back on the single market and the EU customs union at 2300 GMT. December 31st.
The UK formally left the EU on January 31, but has since been in a transitional period in which the rules on trade, travel and business remained unchanged. But from the end of this year it will be treated by Brussels as a third country.
If they have reached a zero-tariff, zero-quota deal, it would safeguard nearly a trillion dollars in annual trade and support peace in Northern Ireland, a priority for U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, who warned Johnson that he should do what. defend the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.
More major transport delays are feared starting in the New Year after Brexit. (Photo: AFP / Ben Stansall)
Even with a deal, the halt from January 1 is certain, when Britain ends its often strained 48-year relationship with a Franco-German-led project that sought to unite the ruined nations of post-German Europe. World War II as a global power.
After months of talks that were sometimes thwarted by the COVID-19 and Brexit fireworks in London and Paris, the leaders of the 27 EU member states have projected a deal as a way to avoid the nightmare of an exit. “whitout deal”.
But Europe’s second-largest economy will emerge from both the EU Single Market, which former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher helped create, and its Customs Union.
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When the UK shocked the world by voting to leave the EU, many in Europe hoped that it could stay closely aligned. But that was not to be.
Johnson, the face of the 2016 Brexit campaign, made it clear 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 allow a free and unregulated British economy that might encourage others to leave.
The result was a tortuous negotiation on the level playing field in competition, which the EU required to access its market. At one point, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier even posted a photo of himself in London looking at a playing field.
If there is going to be a deal, it covers the goods but not the financial services that make London the only financial capital to rival New York. Services represent 80 percent of the British economy.
Trading in goods 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.
In essence, what they have agreed to is a limited free trade agreement surrounded by other agreements on fisheries, police cooperation, transportation and energy.
Fishing rights have been a key stumbling block. (Photo: AFP / Andy Buchanan)
The UK, which imports some $ 107 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% of GDP.
Admission to the EU market for London-based banks, insurers and asset managers is managed outside of the deal and, as of January 1, access will be spotty at best.
