NO PROGRESS IN BREXIT TRADE TALKS AS DEADLINE NEARS

European Union (EU) and British negotiators said on Friday they had made very little progress in their latest round of talks about a Brexit free trade agreement, with just weeks left to extend a year-end deadline to reach a deal, Gabriela Baczynska and Michael Holden wrote for Reuters late on June 5, 2020.

Both sides, however, avoided the vitriol that has sometimes marked years of tortuous Brexit talks. They laid out plans to intensify negotiations and pleaded for a renewed political push when their leaders assess the situation later in June. At stake is 650 billion pounds ($825 billion) in trade a year before the coronavirus crisis between the world’s fifth-biggest economy and its biggest trading bloc. A total of 40% of UK products goes to EU annually while British trade with the US is only 15% of its global trade.

Britain left the EU in January. Their relationship is now governed by a transition arrangement that keeps previous rules in place while they negotiate new terms. So far, this has not gone well. The EU says Britain can only go on trading freely with it if London signs up to “level playing field” rules to guarantee equivalent regulatory standards on the environment and labor. London rejects this, saying it will not be dictated to by the EU.

“This week, there have been no significant areas of progress ... We cannot go on like this forever,” EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told a news conference. He said the EU and Britain remained far apart on the issues of fair competition Guarantees and the governance of their new relationship, as well as fishing rights. He noted some progress in talks over human rights guarantees that would allow Britain and the EU to go on cooperating in criminal and judicial matters from 2021, but the two sides were still far from agreement.