BRUSSELS (AP) – The UK and the European Union provided sober updates on Thursday on the state of post-Brexit trade talks, with only two weeks to go before a potentially chaotic split.
While Ursula von der Leyen, Chair of the European Union’s Executive Committee, noted that “significant progress has been made on many issues,” she expressed concern at the discussions taking place on fishing rights. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also warned that a no-deal outcome seemed ‘very likely’.
The two spoke early on Thursday evening, their latest in a string of talks over the past few weeks, aimed at unclogging the talks that have gone at a snail’s pace since the UK left the EU on Jan. 31.
The UK will remain within the tariff-free internal market and customs union of the EU until December 31. Failure to reach a post-Brexit deal would likely lead to border chaos in early 2021, as tariffs and other trade barriers implemented by both sides. The talks have bogged down on three main issues: EU access to UK fishing waters, the level playing field to ensure fair competition between companies and the management of every deal.
After their last conversation, von der Leyen warned that bridging major differences, especially in fishing, “will be a major challenge.” Negotiations, she added, would continue on Friday.
According to a statement from Johnson’s 10 Downing Street office, the Prime Minister stressed that “the time was very short” and that “it now seemed very likely that no agreement would be reached unless the EU position changed significantly. “
Johnson, like von der Leyen, focused on the lack of progress in fishing. which proved to be a huge persistent problem during the discussions – even if it accounts for only a very small amount of economic output.
On fisheries, the EU has said on several occasions that it wants an agreement that guarantees reciprocal access to markets and waters. EU fishermen are keen to continue working in UK waters, and the UK fishing industry is highly dependent on exports to the 27-country bloc. Johnson has made the UK’s fisheries and control of its waters a major demand in the long saga of Britain’s departure from the EU.
According to Downing Street, Johnson stressed that the UK “could not accept a situation where it was the only sovereign country in the world unable to control access to its own waters for an extended period of time and faced fishing quotas that hugely disadvantaged its own industry. “
According to Johnson, the EU position was “just not reasonable and if an agreement had to be reached, it had to shift significantly.”
Earlier, the European Parliament issued a three-day ultimatum to negotiators to negotiate a trade deal if it could ratify an agreement this year. European lawmakers said they need to have the terms of any deal before them by the end of Sunday if they want to host a special meeting before the end of the year.
If a deal comes later, it cannot be ratified until 2021, as parliament would not have enough time to debate the deal.
“We’ll give until Sunday for Boris Johnson to make a decision,” said Dacian Ciolos, chairman of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament. “The uncertainty that dominates citizens and businesses as a result of choices in the UK is becoming unbearable.”
A trade agreement would ensure that there are no tariffs and quotas for trade in goods between the two sides, but there would still be technical costs, partly related to customs controls and non-tariff barriers to services.
The UK Parliament must also approve any Brexit deal, and the Christmas holidays complicate the timing even further. Lawmakers will be on vacation Friday to January 5, but the government has said they can be called back 48 hours in advance to approve an agreement if one is struck.
While both sides would suffer economically from the lack of a trade deal, most economists think the UK economy would take a bigger hit, at least in the short term, as it relies relatively more on trade with the EU than the other way around.
Both sides have said they would try to mitigate the impact of a no-deal, but most experts believe that whatever short-term measures are taken, trade will be greatly disrupted.
“The Prime Minister reiterated there was very little time left,” Downing Street said in his statement following the call. “He said that if no agreement could be reached, the UK and the EU would part as friends, with the UK trading with the EU in an Australian way.”
Australia does not have a free trade agreement with the EU.
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Pan Pylas contributed from London.
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