Brexit trade and security deal with EU within
'touching distance', says No 10
Boris Johnson briefs cabinet on breakthrough and is
expected to address nation early on Christmas Eve
Daniel
Boffey in Brussels and Heather Stewart
Thu 24 Dec
2020 00.26 GMT
Boris
Johnson will sign off on an historic post-Brexit trade and security deal with
the European Union in a telephone call with Ursula von der Leyen this Christmas
eve morning, four and a half years after Britain chose to leave the bloc.
A call is
expected early this morning between the the prime minister and European
commission’s president, ahead of press conferences an hour later on either side
of the English channel. Negotiations had continued deep into the night over the
fishing arrangements, one of the final sticking points in the talks.
The
agreement once announced will include unprecedented provisions for zero tariffs
or quotas on all goods, as well as settle the future arrangements on a vast
range of issues from aviation and transport to civil nuclear cooperation and
energy.
Just after
11pm on Wednesday night, the prime minister had briefed the cabinet telling
them that he would need their help in selling the deal. The prime minister
claimed the hard-fought agreement respected the sovereignty of both sides.
The UK left
the EU on 31 January, following the June 2016 referendum, but has remained in
the bloc’s single market and customs union for a year-long transition period,
temporarily allowing freedom of movement to continue and trade flows to remain
frictionless.
An EU
commission spokesperson had tweeted just after at midnight GMT:
UK sources
dismissed the claims from Paris but Downing Street faced immediate threats from
the European Research Group (ERG) of Tory Brexiter backbenchers.
One of the
hold-ups was understood to be the prime minister’s desire to prepare the ground
with key backbenchers before the announcement. Downing Street was making a
series of calls to senior figures throughout the evening.
In a joint
statement, the chairman and vice-chairman of the group, Mark Francois and David
Jones, said they would task a self-styled “star chamber” of lawyers to analyse
the provisions of the treaty before deciding on whether to give their support.
The
statement said: “The ERG will tomorrow [Thursday] reconvene the panel of legal
experts, chaired by Sir Bill Cash, to examine the details and legal text. The
team of highly experienced lawyers previously known as the ‘star chamber’ was
first assembled in 2019 to examine the legal aspects of Theresa May’s original
withdrawal agreement.
“Given that
the new agreement is also highly complex, the star chamber will scrutinise it
in detail, to ensure that its provisions genuinely protect the sovereignty of
the UK, after we exit the transition period at the end of this year.
“The star
chamber, which will include some new members to replace those now in
government, will undertake its examination as expeditiously as possible, before
providing its conclusions on the merits of the deal – which we will aim to make
public before parliament reconvenes.”
Johnson had
been in contact with Von der Leyen at least four times on Wednesday, at the end
of eight months of tortuous negotiations. The commission president was also
engaged in furious telephone diplomacy with the EU capitals, as she sought to
push the talks over the line.
“David
Frost is in Brussels working through the detailed legal text, line by line, and
we hope we will be in a position to announce an agreement, but we’re not there
yet,” said an UK source. “We need to make sure the devil is not in the detail.”
With
discussions continuing in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters, a pizza
delivery arrived shortly after 10pm local time.
The UK will
leave the EU’s single market and customs union in a week, with or without a
deal on the new arrangements. EU ambassadors plan to meet to start the
ratification process on Thursday morning.
Sources in
Brussels and London had confirmed earlier on Wednesday that they believed the
talks were coming to a successful conclusion. A senior EU source told the
Guardian: “The stars have aligned.”
Diplomats
representing the 27 EU member states have already started combing through the
legal text. The Commons is likely to be recalled by Sunday should the deal be
announced after troubled negotiations that had repeatedly looked set to fail.
Only two weeks ago, the prime minister said a no deal outcome was “very, very likely”.
A vote by
the European parliament to give consent to a trade and security agreement with
the UK is no longer possible, given the lack of time left before the end of the
transition period.
Should a
deal emerge, the EU capitals will instead have to agree to “provisional
application” of the deal on 1 January, with MEPs voting later in the month.
The process
can take up to a week, given the need for the treaty to be translated and
scrutinised by the 27 governments. A meeting of ambassadors on Christmas Eve
would be the first step towards the provisional application.
Barnier has
told MEPs that Christmas Day is the deadline in order for a deal to be in place
by 1 January. Should agreement be found after that date, contingency measures
would have to be agreed with Downing Street to bridge a short “no-deal” period.
The two
sides have been at loggerheads over future EU access and quotas in British
fishing waters, an issue of small economic impact but high political salience
for both sides.
Barnier
said the EU had offered a six-year transition period for phasing in a 25%
reduction in the catch by value taken by European fleet in British waters, with
access guaranteed to a six to 12 nautical mile zone from the British coastline.
Downing
Street had tabled a counter-proposal of a three-year transition period with a
60% reduction – and no access to the nautical zone. Barnier said this issue
would have to be settled by Von der Leyen and Johnson with the input of the
concerned EU capitals.
The
compromise is likely to involve a transition period of five and a half years to
phase in the changes, sources said, with the UK accepting a 25% repatriation of
quotas. But Downing Street has knocked back attempts by the EU to establish a
mechanism under which changes to the quotas in the future could lead to tariffs
on British exports. The issue had been key to Downing Street’s claims to have
taken back control of British waters.
On the
issue of the so-called evolution clause designed to avoid either side gaining a
competitive advantage by failing to upgrade environmental, social and labour
standards over time, Barnier had said on Tuesday that there was agreement.
He
explained that if either party felt trade was being distorted, they could take
measures after consultation. An arbitrage panel would meet within 30 days and
adjudicate. If the measures were later seen to have been deemed erroneous or
excessive, the aggrieved party would be able to take compensatory measures.
EU officials prepare for Brexit deal as talks
head into Thursday
In Brussels, hopes of reaching a trade deal increase.
BY JACOPO
BARIGAZZI AND HANS VON DER BURCHARD
December
23, 2020 7:48 pm
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-officials-prepare-for-uk-brexit-deal-as-soon-as-tonight/
EU
diplomats have begun the process of preparing member countries to sign off on a
Brexit deal, indicating an agreement with the U.K. could be imminent.
Hopes of
reaching a deal governing future EU-U.K. relations once the Brexit transition
period ends increased significantly on Wednesday, EU diplomats said, adding
that both sides have made important progress since Tuesday afternoon when EU
chief negotiator Michel Barnier offered a rather negative outlook on the talks.
In a sign
that a deal could be clinched in the coming hours, EU ambassadors are on
standby for a potential briefing on Thursday morning, several EU diplomats
said. A spokesperson for the German presidency of the Council of the EU said on
Twitter that no such meeting had been scheduled yet.
However, an
EU official and a diplomat both said the two sides were yet to agree on
fisheries, which has long been a contentious issue in the talks. According to
two diplomats, France is yet to be convinced on the issue. Writing in POLITICO,
former U.K. government adviser Raoul Ruparel on Monday outlined a potential
landing zone for the final deal.
A draft
"non paper" sent to EU capitals on Wednesday and seen by POLITICO,
indicates that EU countries will be asked to give the green light to an EU-U.K.
Partnership Agreement. However, the draft document is not the final request for
approval and neither is it the full text of a deal. It still includes
placeholders, for example stating that "the negotiations were completed on
xx December 2020."
Given time
is so tight before the transition period ends on December 31, the draft
document says a deal should be adopted using an accelerated "provisional
application" procedure. This only requires the consent of EU countries and
the British side, while the European Parliament, which would generally vote on
such a text before it became law, would vote on the deal retrospectively in
January.
One EU
diplomat said the draft text is likely intended to prepare countries for a
final deal. “The air is full of expectations but we aren’t there yet,” another
EU diplomat said.
Brussels
and London are under pressure to reach a deal before Thursday morning, which is
the last possible date by which EU diplomats say it can still be implemented
before year's end, when the Brexit transition period ends.
This story
has been updated.
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