[ad_1]
EU leaders will tell Boris Johnson that only the British government “will have to make the necessary moves” to make a trade and security deal possible, according to a leaked draft of a summit statement that threatens to derail the negotiation.
Heads of state and government are meeting in Brussels at a stage known as the European council to discuss the way forward in Brexit negotiations, with the prime minister insisting that he could still abandon the talks.
Johnson has said he will make a decision on Friday, at the end of the two-day EU summit. You’re looking for a new round of conversations 24 hours a day and a commitment to start working on the legal text as a price for continuing.
But EU states seem unwilling to give Johnson an easy ride. The commitment to intensify talks on a first draft of a statement to be issued by leaders has been removed from the latest version seen by The Guardian.
According to the latest draft, leaders would say instead that the EU “notes with concern that progress on key issues of concern to the union is not yet sufficient to reach an agreement.”
While confirming that they want a close partnership with the UK, they will ask Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, to simply “continue the negotiations in the coming weeks, and call on the UK to take the necessary steps to make a possible agreement “.
Leaders will also comment on Johnson’s decision to unilaterally try to rewrite the withdrawal agreement through the domestic market bill. They would order the commission to take further steps to protect the EU in the event of a no-deal outcome.
“Regarding the internal market bill presented by the UK government, the European council recalls that the withdrawal agreement and its protocols must be implemented in a complete and timely manner,” says the draft declaration. “The European Council urges the Member States, the trade union institutions and all interested parties to intensify their preparatory and preparatory work at all levels and for all outcomes, including the lack of agreement, and invites the commission, in particular, to consider timely unilateral emergency measures of limited duration that are in the interest of the EU ”.
How Downing Street will react to the leaders’ expected statement remains to be seen. Johnson’s chief negotiator David Frost is expected to inform the prime minister that a deal is still possible, but that progress on the most contentious issues is proving difficult.
Problematic areas remain how to keep both parties on their promises, the EU’s access to British fishing waters, and so-called level playing field provisions, which Brussels wants to ensure that neither party can undermine standards or subsidize parties too much. of the economy to give. their companies a competitive advantage in the market.
Pascal Canfin, chairman of the European parliament’s environment committee, said his member is now examining the repercussions of a no-deal exit.
He said: “A no-deal scenario means addressing many very practical questions: what do we do if, in climate policy, the EU carbon price is around € 30 and in the UK around € 15? It would be a significant blow to fair competition between the EU and the UK, and the EU owes it to its companies to avoid having the possibility of a climate spill on their doorstep … To deal with this situation, we need a mechanism to ‘ correcting ‘the divergent carbon price, so that UK products and EU products are treated the same.
“Same question, with food standards: the UK is currently negotiating a trade deal with the US; the US administration has never hidden its willingness to sell chlorinated chicken to the UK.
“How do you ensure, in a situation where the UK carries out custom checks to enter the EU in the Irish Sea, that no such chicken enters the EU market? Again, the same question with chemicals produced in the UK: the process to authorize them on the EU market, the Reach Regulation, is comprehensive and demanding.
“The UK has already announced its willingness to have its own regulation. What do we do if the future UK system does not meet our standards? “
