Britain and the European Union will reconvene post-Brexit trade negotiations in Brussels on Sunday after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen held inconclusive talks, as time runs out to seal a deal, reports BSS/AFP.
The pair spoke for around an hour by phone on Saturday afternoon and agreed to make a final push to finalise an agreement ahead of the Brexit transition period ending on December 31.
The high-level political intervention followed deadlocked UK and EUnegotiating teams pausing the last-ditch talks late Friday.
Both sides continue to have “significant differences” on several criticalissues that have long stalled progress, a joint statement by Johnson and von der Leyen said.
“Whilst recognising the seriousness of these differences, we agreed that afurther effort should be undertaken by our negotiating teams to assess whether they can be resolved,” they added.
“We are therefore instructing our chief negotiators to reconvene tomorrowin Brussels. We will speak again on Monday evening.”
A deal is seen as essential to avoid deep trade disruption on both sideswhich would weaken economies already damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
Johnson and von der Leyen last spoke on November 7, but a month laterBritain and the bloc remain divided over so-called level playing field provisions, governance and fisheries.
“Both sides underlined that no agreement is feasible if these issues are not resolved,” Saturday’s joint statement added.
Britain formally left the EU in January, nearly four years after a referendum on membership that divided the nation, but has remained bound by most of its rules until the end of the year.
Without a new deal, the bulk of cross-Channel trade will revert to World Trade Organization terms, an unwanted return to tariffs and quotas afteralmost five decades of deepening economic and political integration.
Talks through this year have finalised most aspects of an agreement, with Britain set to leave the EU single market and customs union, bu the most thorny issues have remain unresolved.
“We will see if there is a way forward,” EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Saturday. “Work continues tomorrow.”
Britain’s top Brexit envoy David Frost will travel to Brussels early Sundaywith a small team of negotiators, according to reports, with just days left to finalise an agreement before an EU leaders’ summit Thursday.
