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Nine months after the talks began, the tension showed when Michel Barnier and David Frost entered the windowless “cave” on Friday in a final attempt to resolve the post-Brexit relationship between Britain and the EU.
Negotiations that began in March and were supposed to conclude in July, then October, finally entered what both sides recognized as the endgame. “They have come as far as they can,” said a UK official.
Supported by takeaway pizzas and sandwiches, Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and Lord Frost, his British counterpart, have led teams that worked late into the night in London this week on a future relationship deal.
But an air of grave uncertainty hung over the process when the negotiations were “paused” to allow Boris Johnson to speak with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, to try to break out of the deadlock. UK officials had previously warned that the talks were at “a very difficult point”.
Both parties now accept that any agreement signed by officials in the dingy underground conference center of the Department of Business, a stone’s throw from the UK parliament, will have to be referred to higher authorities.
British Prime Minister Johnson, who has been working this weekend since the withdrawal of Checkers from his country, is waiting to speak with other European leaders to try to secure an agreement that supports attempts to rebuild relations between the United Kingdom and the EU after Brexit.
An electronic billboard in London displays a government information message advising companies to prepare for Brexit © REUTERS
The same issues have haunted the talks from the beginning and remained unsolved at 11 a.m. Friday when Barnier and Lord Frost returned to the negotiating table: the so-called level playing field agreements to ensure fair trade competition and access to the EU to fishing in the UK. waters.
Both issues are at the center of the negotiations: Johnson’s desire to regain sovereignty over Britain’s fisheries and regulatory regime, and the EU’s insistence that any deal granting access to its vast 450 million domestic market of people must come with conditions.
A real sense of urgency now takes hold of the negotiations and not just because time is running out before Britain’s Brexit transition period expires on January 1.
On Monday, MPs will start voting on Johnson’s controversial legislation that would allow ministers to break parts of the UK’s withdrawal treaty with the EU in relation to Northern Ireland.
The prospect of parliamentarians voting to violate an EU treaty while negotiators simultaneously trying to agree on a new one has caused shudders on both sides. Charles Michel, President of the European Council, stressed that Britain must fully respect its withdrawal treaty.
On Thursday, the 27 EU leaders met for a summit of heads of government in Brussels, with both sides determined to solve the problem by then.
Talks in the ‘cave’, adorned with posters touting Britain’s post-Brexit trade ambitions, have been dominated in part by neuralgic disputes over how to divide up existing EU fishing rights in British waters, worth around 650 million euros each year, and deliver some of it to the UK.
UK officials complain that the EU side is reluctant to go beyond an old offer to sacrifice around 18 per cent of those fishing rights.
For the past two days, negotiators have bargained species for species, and the talks have taken place against a backdrop of incessant pressure from France not to sell the sector from the EU.
Jean Castex, France’s prime minister, addressed Boulogne-sur-Mer on Thursday to warn that the country was ready to veto the fruits of Barnier’s efforts.
Meeting French President Emmanuel Macron will be a top priority for Brussels bosses should a deal materialize, with Paris at the forefront of a concerned group of EU capitals that have joined during the course of this week. .
The group, which also includes the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and Spain, worries that too many concessions have been made to Britain and insists that it would be better if the talks drag on rather than the EU accepting a bad. treatment. .
During a briefing with ambassadors on Wednesday and a separate session with senior advisers to national leaders on Thursday, the group insisted that Barnier stay at the negotiating table until he reached an agreement that would protect his fishermen and safeguard their business, or conversations ran aground.
France and the other countries are concerned that not only the European Commission, but also Berlin is prepared to accept a suboptimal deal, and they have asked for early scrutiny of what emerges from the talks before anyone clarifies a positive outcome.
The complaints were a visible sign that Barnier was facing the limits of his negotiating mandate and increased the pressure on the exhausted EU negotiators after a six-week period of nearly uninterrupted daily sessions with their British counterparts.
The restrictions on Barnier contributed to the talks becoming tangled over the EU’s insistence on its right to quickly dish out financial punishment to Britain if it breaches the terms of a future relationship agreement.
Brussels is demanding so-called cross-retaliation rights that would allow it, for example, to impose tariffs on UK manufactured goods if the UK breaches its commitments on a level playing field.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesperson Steffen Seibert said: “There is always room for compromise. That’s our basic attitude, even when there isn’t much time left. ”
The next few days will determine if he is right.
Additional reporting on Guy Chazan in Berlin
