LONDON (AP) – The European Union and the United Kingdom decided on Saturday to continue negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal, after the three key issues still unresolved before the year-end deadline.
Following a phone call between them, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reported that their respective negotiating teams will return to the table on Sunday despite the remaining fundamental differences between the two parties on the rules for fair competition, the legal supervision of the convention and the fishing rights for European Union vessels in British waters.
“Considerable differences remain”, both leaders stressed in a joint statement after their telephone conversation to assess the situation on the future relationship between the EU and the United Kingdom.
Although Britain left the EU on January 31, it remains within the bloc market without paying tariffs or clearing customs until the end of this year. A trade agreement by then would ensure that there are no tariffs or quotas on trade between the two parties, but there would still be technical costs, associated in part with customs inspections and non-tariff barriers to services.
The negotiations would undoubtedly have ended by now if the interests and economic costs at stake were not so important. But because the EU is an economic powerhouse and Britain has strong diplomatic and security interests beyond trade, both sides wish to use every last chance to strike a deal before becoming bitter rivals.
“While we recognize the seriousness of these differences, we agree that our negotiating teams should go the extra mile to assess whether they can be resolved,” Johnson and von der Leyen said after the more than one hour telephone conversation.
In their statement, both leaders noted that progress has been made in many areas, but that divisions persist over fishing rights, the “level playing field” – the standards that the UK must meet to export to the bloc – and how in which they will resolve any future dispute.
“Both parties stressed that no agreement is feasible if these problems are not resolved,” they said.
With the post-Brexit transition period drawing to a close at the end of the year, the discussions are clearly facing a watershed moment, taking into account among other things the required approvals from both parties. Without a deal, tariffs will be imposed on products at the start of 2021.
Although both sides would suffer economically in the absence of an agreement, most economists say that the British economy would be hit the worst, at least in the short term, as it depends more on trade with the EU than vice versa.
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Casert reported from Brussels.
