Brexit response and response. It is a Johnson-Barnier duel

EU-UK response and response on the negotiation for future post-Brexit relations. At the starting pits Brussels and London showed their teeth, with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier engaged in a long-distance duel, which promises bitter discussions for the months to come, until the end of the transition, on December 31st.

To beat the fists on the table, determined to 'not bend' under the conditions of the 27, was once again the volcanic Boris Johnson. In his manifesto-speech, Prime Minister Tory invoked a zero-duty (or almost) zero-trade agreement, on the model of Canada, which he contested: it does not provide for "alignments with" EU "rules and criteria on subsidy policy, competition, social protection, or the environment ", thus rejecting the sender's requests from Brussels to insert in the Treaty a basis of common standards according to the principle of regulated competition of the 'level playing field', that is, common game rules.

"Will we stop importing Italian cars or German wines?" Asked Bojo rhetorically with a half-gaffe, evoking the risk of protectionism for Trump in the event of a failure to agree. The answer - accompanied by an unspecified commitment not to undermine European standards, seems to be no -. But the ways to reconcile the British position with those of the Union, which sees in the level palying field an important tool to contain unfair competition on the doorstep, is to be invented. The alternative, as suggested still by Johnson, could be a relationship "more similar to Australia-EU" (ie an agreement reduced to the minimum terms), a plan b that appears to all intents and purposes a sort of 'no deal' .