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Boris Johnson is heading to Brussels to dine with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, hoping to receive an early Christmas present: a Brexit deal.
With a stalemate after months of talks between UK and EU negotiators, the prime minister is aiming for an 11-hour breakthrough in what could be a decisive meeting.
Johnson will fly to Brussels from RAF Northolt after the Prime Minister’s Questions and, after a three-course dinner with Ms Von der Leyen, will return to London later that evening.
Dinner is indeed the last chance for a Brexit dealAfter talks between UK negotiator Lord Frost and EU Michel Barnier, who said the chances of a deal now were “very slim”, they appeared to have run their course.
If no breakthrough is made at dinner, a no-deal Brexit is much more likely, which Johnson says he wants to avoid, as some European leaders are believed to be running out of patience.
In announcing the dinner date, Ms Von der Leyen tweeted: “I look forward to welcoming UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson tomorrow evening. We will continue our discussion on the partnership agreement.”
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EU: Still ‘significant differences’ on Brexit
But before dinner, a UK government source downplayed expectations, saying: “It is clear that some political impetus will be required for the talks to progress further.”
“If we can make progress at the political level, it is possible that Lord Frost and his team will resume negotiations in the coming days.
“But we must be realistic that a deal may not be possible as we will not commit to claiming UK sovereignty.”
Although Johnson previously said “hope is eternal”, the remaining problems In the way of a trade agreement are fishing rights, a level playing field guarantees and the governance of any agreement.
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Brexit trade deal ‘looks very difficult’
There were suggestions that Johnson was eager to travel to Brussels on Thursday or Friday so that he could also have face-to-face meetings with the EU’s top power brokers Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron.
But von der Leyen is believed to have opposed that idea and did not want Johnson and the Brexit dispute to disrupt and overshadow the discussions at the two-day summit of the 27 EU leaders.
Instead, he is expected to brief leaders during the summit on his talks with Johnson, and if there is progress at the dinner, negotiations between Lord Frost and Barnier could resume on Friday.
European Commission chief spokesman Eric Mamer said Johnson and von der Leyen would not seal a deal but would instead try to find a reason to “move forward, hopefully, with the negotiations, which hopefully they could continue after that” .
“This is uncharted territory,” he said. “We will have to see how this meeting goes.”
Earlier, when briefing EU foreign ministers, Barnier said: “We are close to the time of needing urgent measures, which means a contingency plan to not reach an agreement.”
“The foundation of our future cooperation with the UK is more important than rushing now. We cannot sacrifice our long-term interests for short-term political goals.”
But the prospects for a breakthrough at the dinner got a boost when Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove announced a deal on post-Brexit arrangements for the Irish border.
After speaking with Maros Sefcovic, the commission’s vice chairman, in Brussels on Monday, Gove announced that the government will eliminate parts of the UK Internal Market Bill that violate international law.
Welcoming the agreement on the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, Mr Sefcovic said: “I hope this will generate positive momentum for the discussions on the free trade agreement.
“We are still very far apart and we are not hiding this from anyone. We have removed a major obstacle from the road and I hope that we will also see the positive results of these very complex negotiations.”
Gove said: “We have achieved stability and security for Northern Ireland. It was always very important to ensure that there was no border infrastructure between Ireland and Northern Ireland. That is guaranteed.”
“What we have also been able to do is ensure that there are no tariffs and no costs for companies in Northern Ireland and we will also be able to guarantee unrestricted access for products coming from Northern Ireland to the UK.
“And that means that Northern Ireland companies have the opportunity to enjoy the best of both worlds, access to the single European market because there is no infrastructure on the island of Ireland and at the same time, unrestricted access to the rest of the market. British”.
When asked why England, Scotland and Wales couldn’t have the best of both worlds, Gove said: “Northern Ireland is in a unique situation. The only land border the UK has with the EU is on the island. from Ireland”.
The dinner will be the prime minister’s first official visit to Brussels since October 2019, when he signed his EU Withdrawal Agreement, which he hailed as an “oven-ready deal” in the general election campaign a few weeks later.
But Brussels is the city where Johnson made a name for himself as a journalist for The Daily Telegraph, writing stories that included claims that the EU wanted to ban fried prawn cocktails, folded bananas and curved cucumbers and harmonize the size of condoms in All Europe.
In a Telegraph front-page story, the future prime minister claimed that the European Commission headquarters in Berlaymont would be blown up in late 1991.
Three decades later, the renovated Berlaymont not only still stands, but is also the site of Johnson’s dinner with Ursula von der Leyen.
