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BRUSSELS: One of the most intense days in the long-running Brexit trade negotiations started off with little good news about any progress Monday, with the United Kingdom and the European Union seemingly still stuck on the same issues that have dogged the standoff for months.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier held a pre-dawn briefing with ambassadors of the 27 member states to see if a deal is still possible with London ahead of the Jan. 1 deadline, but had no news of a breakthrough.
In the evening, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will have his second phone call with EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in barely 48 hours, to decide whether to pull the plug on an agreement that could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs on both sides and disrupt cross-Channel trade for years to come.
One official from an EU nation said “the difficulties persist” with legal oversight of any trade deal and standards of fair play that the UK needs to meet to be able to export in the EU. On fisheries too, despite indications of progress, a lot of work remains, said the official.
“The United Kingdom has not made the necessary moves,” the official said.
Other EU official were equally glum. “The outcome is still uncertain, it can still go both ways,” said another, who made it clear the bloc’s 27 nations were still united and fully behind Barnier. All spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were still ongoing.
UK Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly acknowledged the situation had changed little despite the need for speed.
“Yes, time is tight, yes it might go right to the wire and, indeed, it may well be that we don’t get the deal. But I think a deal is possible and we’ll keep working toward it until we get it,” he said.
While the UK left the EU on Jan. 31, it remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union through Dec. 31. Reaching a trade deal by then would ensure there are no tariffs and trade quotas on goods exported or imported by the two sides, although there would still be technical costs, partly associated with customs checks and non-tariff barriers on services.
At his early morning meeting with EU ambassadors, Barnier faced some anxious member states that feared too much might have been yielded already to London. If talks continue after Monday, they will be closing in on an two-day EU summit where German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will be major players.
Germany wants a deal partly because its massive car industry has always found a welcome export market in Britain. France, meanwhile, has taken the forefront in demanding that UK companies must closely align themselves with EU rules and environmental and social standards if they still want to export to the lucrative market of 450 million people.
The politically charged issue of fisheries also continues to play an outsized role. The EU has demanded widespread access to UK fishing grounds that historically have been open to foreign trawlers. But in Britain, gaining control of the fishing grounds was a main issue for the Brexiteers who pushed for the country to leave the EU.
EU member states have to unanimously support any post-Brexit trade deal and the agreement still needs to be voted on by the European parliament, procedures that would push any agreement right up to the deadline.
Both sides would suffer economically from a failure to secure a trade deal, but most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit, at least in the short term, as it is relatively more reliant on trade with the EU than vice versa.
Linked through EU membership in since 1973, and as NATO partner with most EU nations, Britain wants to wrest itself free of EU rules that it feels has hamstrung its sovereignty and impeded free initiative.