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Brexit: the hypothesis of a no-deal is "very credible", Johnson and von der Leyen will meet this Wednesday

2020-10-13T20:24:46.943Z


The United Kingdom and Europe accuse each other of blocking these post-Brexit trade negotiations over which the risk of the absence of an agreement still looms.


Boris Johnson had made it a deadline: the meeting between the British Prime Minister and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday sounded the death knell for a decisive step in post-Brexit trade negotiations.

"It does not make sense to think of deadlines that would go beyond"

, had estimated Boris Johnson in early September.

Read also: Brexit: Do Brussels and London still have time to find an agreement?

This exchange takes place on the occasion of a European summit partly devoted to Brexit and while the two parties mutually accuse each other of blocking.

The phone call will take place in the second part of the day.

The Europeans, who have always set themselves at the end of October to find an agreement, for their part clearly indicated on Tuesday that the conclusion of the negotiations would require several more weeks.

"There are a certain number of weeks left for this negotiation, and not days"

, estimated this Tuesday the head of Irish diplomacy, Simon Coveney, after a meeting with his European counterparts in Luxembourg.

A point of view shared by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian who refuted in passing that the next European summit, Thursday and Friday, constitutes a deadline for reaching an agreement.

“The date of October 15, it is not Prime Minister Boris Johnson announcing it, it is not the position of the European Council which meets Thursday and Friday.

It is not necessarily there that it is tied, ”

he said.

Tactical

In addition, the minister considered that a lack of agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom on their future relations was a prospect

"very credible"

and

"probable today"

.

"As it is now, the hypothesis of a 'no-deal' is the very credible hypothesis, unfortunately probable today"

, he declared before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly .

"But we know the British skill in tactics,"

he added, however.

“Even if the British are formidable tacticians, today is not the time for tactics.

We have finished playing, we are at the end of the day, ”

he continued.

“This means that between October 15 and mid-November, everything must be

decided,” he said.

"We are prepared for all eventualities,"

he insisted.

Read also: Brexit: Boris Johnson takes the risk of a "no deal"

The Europeans are also accused of using a

"tactical watch"

of negotiation, according to a source in the British government.

“They assume that the longer the process, the more willing the UK will be to compromise.

But in reality, all of these strategies resulted in us getting into mid-October with a lot of work that could have been done, but was not

, ”she criticized.

"The prospects for an agreement are there (...) It will require the same goodwill, the same pragmatism, the same flexibility on the EU side as what the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister have shown"

, for his part launched the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dominic Raab this Tuesday in front of his Parliament.

The question of fishing at the center of the debates

In these tense negotiations, sticking points persist on fishing, the conditions of fair competition or the governance of the future agreement, underlined the EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, on Tuesday.

"We are frankly at a very critical stage of the negotiations, (...) under extreme pressure,"

said Michael Roth, German Deputy Minister for European Affairs, calling on the United Kingdom to make

"substantial progress"

on three blocking subjects.

“There has been some progress on the issues of a level playing field, but little or no progress, unfortunately, in the area of ​​fishing,”

said Irishman Simon Coveney.

The issue of fishing, in particular, is explosive for a handful of Member States (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland or Denmark), even though activity only represents a negligible part of the economy of the 27 and the United Kingdom: Europeans fish each year for 635 million euros in British waters and the British for 110 million euros in the EU.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2020-10-13

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