EU and UK agree to continue Brexit trade deal talks

Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen vow to ‘go the extra mile’ to try to reach agreement

The EU and UK on Sunday agreed to continue Brexit trade deal talks, saying that it was worth going the “extra mile” to see whether an agreement could be struck, amid signs of progress on key sticking points.  

The decision was made during what the two sides described as a “useful” phone call between British prime minister Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, following intensive negotiations in Brussels this weekend. 

“Despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over we think it is responsible at this point to go the extra mile,” Ms von der Leyen and Mr Johnson said in a joint statement. 

The talks will continue in Brussels, Ms von der Leyen added in a televised statement, saying it had been a “constructive and useful” call with Mr Johnson. The decision echoes comments from German chancellor Angela Merkel earlier on Sunday that the two sides “should try everything to achieve a result”.  

Mr Johnson told broadcasters later that “we are still far apart on some key issues” but added: “Where there is life, there is hope.” The prime minister’s allies counselled against too much optimism.

But people close to the trade deal negotiations suggested there had been signs of progress after a late night of talks in Brussels, with one person saying negotiations were “not going backwards”. 

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his UK counterpart David Frost met on Sunday morning to evaluate how the technical-level talks on an agreement had progressed overnight. 

Although both sides have recently sounded pessimistic over the prospects for a deal ahead of the end of Britain’s Brexit transition period on January 1, the talks have narrowed to one main outstanding issue. 

Negotiations on Saturday centred on trying to accommodate the EU’s demands for a mechanism that would make tariff-free trade dependent on the two sides maintaining fair competition for business through a regulatory “level playing field”. 

Speaking before the UK-EU joint statement, foreign secretary Dominic Raab said if the bloc moderated its demands and treated Britain as a “self-respecting, independent” state, there was “every reason to feel confident” that a deal could be reached. He added: “We are not there yet.” 

Mr Raab told Sky News the UK could not accept a deal that left it bound to EU rules in the future. “We are working incredibly hard,” he added. 

He also hinted that lawyers could pour fudge over a final agreement and that there could be “creative contours in the drafting”.

Britain has rejected different models for an instrument, known in the trade deal talks as an “evolution mechanism” or “equivalence mechanism”, which is intended to deter the UK from undercutting the EU if the bloc decides to raise its standards in areas such as environmental rules or workers’ rights. 

Mr Johnson has argued that the mechanism amounted to leaving the UK tethered to EU rules — something European leaders, including Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte, denied on Friday.  

One EU diplomat said before this weekend’s talks that Brussels had already proposed that the mechanism be administered by a joint committee of EU-UK officials, with arbitration in case of disputes, but that this had still gone too far for the British government.  

Negotiators have also continued work on EU fishing rights in UK waters, another key area of disagreement between the sides.  

Mr Johnson repeated on Sunday that he would like to thrash out a deal through bilateral talks with EU leaders — including Ms Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron — but had been told that negotiations must be conducted on behalf of all of the bloc’s 27 member states by the commission. 

Mr Johnson said the “most likely” outcome remained a no-deal Brexit on World Trade Organization terms on January 1, and urged businesses and individuals to continue preparations for such a scenario.

Source: Financial Times