Hooked: UK and EU stuck in Brexit deadlock over fisheries
“Significant divergences” remain between the UK and EU in Brexit trade deal talks, Michel Barnier said today, as the EU chief negotiator holds crunch talks over access to Britain’s fisheries.
In-person negotiations between Barnier and UK envoy David Frost are set to resume in London this afternoon after a member of the EU team contracted coronavirus last week.
Speaking ahead of today’s meeting, Barnier said talks remained stalled over the “same divergences” of fisheries, state aid, and how to resolve future disputes.
Future fisheries arrangements between the UK and EU have been one of the largest stumbling blocks to a post-Brexit trade deal.
Barnier’s starting position in negotiations with the UK was that Brussels wanted EU countries to retain the same rights to fish in British waters as they had prior to Brexit.
Barnier’s demand was rejected by Frost, who repeatedly affirmed that the UK will be an “independent coastal state” from next year.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters yesterday that “clearly there are substantial and important differences still to be bridged but we’re getting on with it.”
“The likelihood of a deal is very much determined by our friends and partners in the EU — there’s a deal there to be done if they want to do it,” the PM added.
Frost took to Twitter this afternoon to insist “that it’s my job to do my utmost to see if the conditions for a deal exist. It is late, but a deal is still possible, and I will continue to talk until it’s clear that it isn’t.”
Time is running thin for a deal to be struck between the two sides, with the UK set to leave the EU’s single market and customs union on 31 December.
The European Commission has repeatedly warned that both sides will need significant time to ratify a potential deal through parliament.
Britain formally left the EU on 31 January this year, but has remained in a transition period since then under which rules on trade, travel and business remain unchanged. From 1 January it will be treated by Brussels as a third country.