There will be a break in negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom on a Brexit deal, European negotiator Michel Barnier and his British counterpart David Frost tweeted separately on Friday.
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“After a week of intense negotiations in London, the two lead negotiators agree that the conditions for an agreement have not been met,” Barnier and Frost write. According to them, this is due to “significant differences of opinion” in terms of fair competition between British and European companies, regulation supervision and fishing.
“We agreed to pause the negotiations to brief our Heads on the state of the negotiations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and (British) Prime Minister Boris Johnson will then meet on Saturday afternoon ”, the tweet said. This consultation will be done by telephone.
Busy
In recent days, there have been several signals that the Brexit negotiations would be in for a breakthrough. However, there were always reports that this was not true and that there were still significant differences to bridge.
There is the necessary pressure on the negotiations for a new trade agreement. The United Kingdom left the EU at the end of January, but is still following EU rules until the end of this year. If that transition period ends without a new agreement being reached, the EU and the British will revert to the trade rules of the world trade organization WTO. This means that import taxes will be imposed on many products.
