LONDON: A trade deal between Britain and the European Union will be difficult to conclude by the end of the year if a broad agreement has not been reached by October, cabinet office minister Michael Gove said on Thursday.
“If we haven’t secured significant progress by October, then it will be difficult,” Gove said. He added that there was no formal cut off date beyond which a deal could not be implemented.
Any deal would require ratification by both sides – a process which could take several months in the European Union.
Earlier, the European Union’s chief executive, Ursula von der Leyen, said the bloc will do its best to seal an agreement on new ties with Britain by the end of the year but will not compromise its core values, notably on fair competition.
Britain left the EU, the world’s largest trading bloc, on Jan 31 after 47 years of membership, to the huge regret of the EU, and there has been little progress on designing a new relationship with a year-end deadline looming.
“The negotiations with the UK always promised to be difficult and they have not disappointed,” von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, said. “We are now halfway through these negotiations with five months left to go. But we’re definitely not halfway through the work to reach an agreement … We will do all in our power to reach an agreement.”
She said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had confirmed to her this week that London would not seek to prolong negotiations on a new EU-UK trade deal beyond December.
The EU says Britain cannot retain all the economic and trading benefits it had as an EU member, while London says Brussels is not showing enough flexibility.
“We’re ready to be creative to find common ground,” von der Leyen said.
But she went on to say said there could be no deal without “level playing field” guarantees of fair competition, and agreements on fisheries and on dispute-settling mechanisms.
The EU insists that Britain must commit to maintaining EU standards on everything from state aid to labour to environment regulations to prevent it undercutting EU products in the future.
“It should be a shared interest for the European Union and the UK to never slide backwards and always advance together towards highest standards,” von der Leyen said. – June 18, 2020, Reuters
