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| EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier holds a news conference after a meeting with Britain’s chief negotiator in Brussels on August 21, 2020. – Barnier said he was worried and “disappointed” at the lack of progress in the latest round of Brexit trade talks. (Photo by YVES HERMAN / POOL / AFP) |
The EU and Britain on Friday traded blame for the lack
of progress after the latest round of post-Brexit trade talks, with Brussels
warning that a deal looked unlikely.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier lodged his
warning at the close of the seventh round of trade talks, which again got stuck
on key issues, mainly fishing rights and competition rules.
Hundreds of negotiators met over several days in the
Belgian capital with both sides acknowledging a sliver of progress on technical
issues — but not on the main obstacles.
“Those who were hoping for negotiations to move
swiftly forward this week will have been disappointed,” Barnier told reporters
after the talks ended in Brussels.
“And, unfortunately, I too am frankly disappointed and
concerned and surprised as well,” he added.
His UK counterpart David Frost countered that
Brussels’ insistence that London meet EU demands on state aid and fisheries
policy before work on other areas made it “unnecessarily difficult to make
progress”.
Frost reiterated that he thought a deal remained
possible and was Britain’s aim but he warned: “It is clear that it will not be
easy to achieve.”
‘Backwards not forwards’
Barnier said that “too often this week it felt as if
we were going backwards rather than forwards.”
“At this stage an agreement between the UK and
European Union seems unlikely.
“I simply do not understand why we are wasting
valuable time,” he said.
Britain left the EU in January, nearly four years
after a landmark referendum to end almost 50 years of European integration.
Both sides are pushing to have a deal in place by the
end of a post-Brexit transition period that ends on December 31.
The Europeans said this requires an agreement by
October, leaving just two more months to find common ground.
If no deal is struck, ties will default to minimum
standards set by the World Trade Organization, bringing higher tariffs and
making onerous demands on business which threaten chaos on the cross-Channel
border.
A European source said that Britain was pushing to
delay negotiation on fishing and competition until as late as possible, a
strategy that Brussels said was unacceptable.
“On these two pillars of a future agreement, the
stalemate continues. You can’t keep moving forward on other issues when you
have a gaping hole on the core issues,” the source said.
The next round of talks will be held in London
September 7, with an EU summit planned for October 15-16 seen as the unofficial
deadline for a deal.
A senior UK negotiating official said Frost would be
in “close contact” with Barnier over the next couple of weeks before the next
round of talks.
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