“After a week of intensive negotiations in London, the two chief negotiators agree that the conditions for an agreement have not been met,” Barnier and Frost write in a statement they distributed separately. According to the chief negotiators, this is due to “significant differences” in fair competition between British and European companies, agreement supervision and fisheries.
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Barnier and Frost are going to inform their bosses about the state of the negotiations. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will then meet tomorrow afternoon.
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In recent days, there have been several signals that the Brexit negotiations would be about to break through. However, there were always reports that this was not true and that there were still significant differences to bridge.
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The United Kingdom will cut all ties with the EU on 1 January, but there is no prospect of a deal yet. Should it be, there is hardly time for parliament to approve it or not.
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On New Years Day, the United Kingdom (UK) continues alone. The British have not been a member of the EU since 31 January this year, but are still bound by its rules during the transition period. It was intended that those 11 months would be used to make agreements about the future relationship between London and the remaining 27 EU member states, but there is no outcome yet.
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If the transition period ends without an agreement, the EU and the UK will fall back to World Trade Organization (WTO) trade rules. This means that import taxes will be imposed on many products.
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