David Frost, Britain’s Brexit Minister, called on the EU to show “common sense” ahead of the meeting, arguing in an op-ed published in the Financial Times on Monday that the UK had presented the bloc with a “range of policy papers” to find a solution over the Irish issue.

As part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and in order to avoid the creation of a physical border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland which many fear could spark sectarian violence on the island once more, the British province has so far remained in the bloc’s customs unions.

This effectively created a border in the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland as certain goods now need to be checked before traveling across the sea.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement now in force, has since called it “ludicrous” and London unilaterally decided earlier this year to waive checks. Britain now wants to extend that waiver to 2023.

Brussels has warned of repercussions if London follows through with its threat with Maros Sefcovic, the Commission’s negotiator, writing in the Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday: “If the U.K. takes further unilateral action over the coming weeks, the EU will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the U.K. abides by its international law obligations.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has refuted Frost’s accusation that the EU is unwilling to negotiate, writing on Twitter earlier this week that “Lord Frost continues to lay blame for difficulty with Protocol at EU inflexibility. This is simply not the case. ⁦Maros Sefcovic & EU have consistently proposed new solutions.

The post Brexit: Northern Ireland Protocol once more at heart of EU-UK tensions appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

The U.K. economy shrank less than expected in January, but trade with the European Union fell sharply after the end of the Brexit transition period at the beginning of the year, numbers from the Office for National Statistics showed on Friday.

• Exports of goods to the EU fell by 40.7% compared with December, and imports by 28.8%, by far the largest declines since comparable numbers began to be collected in 1997.
• By comparison, exports to non-EU countries rose 1.7% and imports from the same group only fell by 17.6%.
• The U.K. left the EU single market and its customs union on Jan. 1.
• The ONS also said that gross domestic product in January shrank by 2.9%, way below an analyst consensus forecast of a 4.9% fall.
• Besides shrinking trade, the GDP fall is mostly due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions to economic activity that were imposed shortly after the new year, including the closure of schools.
• The hit to services and manufacturing was in part compensated by a significant increase in health spending, due to the nationwide rollout of a “test and trace” system.

The outlook: Expect GDP to pick up from March, after the beginning of a successful vaccination campaign, followed by the gradual reopening of the economy. But the trade numbers seem to show that the border problems are more than the Brexit “teething problems” shrugged off by the government.

The post Brexit takes its toll on U.K. economy as trade with EU falls sharply appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Leaders in the business say it is a major setback for tree-planting programmes in Belfast and elsewhere in the region.

The Woodland Trust in Northern Ireland has just cancelled an order for 22,000 trees, which were destined for schools and communities as part of a Northern Ireland greening project.

“It’s a disaster. They’re just stopping any exports from mainland UK over to Northern Ireland. We can’t get any trees over from any of the nurseries that we would usually deal with over there,” said Gregor Fulton, an estate and outreach manager at the trust.

Scotland-based Alba Trees, one of the biggest suppliers in Britain, selling around 250,000 trees a year to Northern Ireland, says it has also been hit.

“At a stroke Brexit has taken away a huge chunk of our business,” said Craig Turner, the chief executive. “We turned down an order of 70,000 oaks a couple of weeks ago because we can’t ship them.”

And Belfast city council, which has an ambitious tree-planting programme involving 1m plants, confirmed it had a delivery of “300 large specimen trees” from a supplier in England “delayed due to new rules around the movement of plants” from Britain.

The horticulture division that Brexit has created between Britain and Northern Ireland is expected to be raised at meeting between local business leaders and the European commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič on Thursday. The issue is one of many problems caused by Brexit, including a ban on the export of live shellfish to the EU.

“We thought it would be teething problems that would be resolved quickly. It just seems ludicrous really,” said Fulton. “The irony is that I can now get a tree easier from Latvia than I can from Britain, which totally undermines all the work on biosecurity,” he added, referring to the risk of importing pests and diseases.

The problem arises from three new rules applying to Northern Ireland, which is observing EU customs and regulatory rules on plants and animals as part of the Northern Ireland protocol.

A ban on British soil being moved into Northern Ireland emerged two weeks ago, with garden centres protesting about a block on supplies from British nurseries. Fulton said he had been told washing all the soil off roots could be the solution.

“That’s just not practical. We got an order in last year of 56,000 trees in one go. You can’t wash 56,000 trees roots. It would be too big a cost and the nurseries are just not going to do that,” he said.

If bare-rooted trees were available in sufficient quantities, buyers would then face Brexit paperwork involving health certification and customs for the plants.

A further barrier stems from the EU’s list of species prohibited or restricted for import from third countries, which now includes the UK.

The list is designed to protect Europe from diseases and pests but includes native trees including oaks, alder and birch, important for native mixed woodlands.

Mike Harvey, director at Maelor Forest Nurseries in Wales, which sells about 32m trees a year, said it too had had to stop selling to Northern Ireland, with a recent order for 1,000 oaks about to be cancelled.

But what enrages Harvey is not so much the ban on movement of trees to Northern Ireland but the continued importation of trees from Ireland for forestation projects.

He said Brexit gave the UK an opportunity to close the border to EU trees and give the country a fighting chance of stopping the “drift of disease from south-east Europe to the north-west”.

The diseases, which some put down to climate change, include ash dieback and the Xylella disease, which has come into the UK via olive trees and can affect several species of broadleaved trees.

“It’s typical that the EU puts these restrictions in place and applies them rigorously in Northern Ireland but we leave the borders open to trees coming in from the EU including Ireland and the Netherlands,” Harvey said.

“If we want to control disease and give ourselves a chance, it’s actually a good thing to stop these transportation of trees between our islands.”

The obstructions have emerged just as Northern Ireland’s environment minister, Gordon Lyons, launches a campaign to remind farmers they have only weeks left to apply for funding to plant native woodlands, to help deliver on a pledge to plant 18m trees by 2030.

The post Brexit forces Northern Ireland buyers to cancel orders for 100,000 trees appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

The post Rising tensions in Northern Ireland stem from Brexit, not the Protocol, Dublin says as UK blames EU vaccine control plan appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Brexit talks in recent weeks have been dominated by numerous, anonymous “sources” briefing reporters in both the U.K. and on the continent about the parlous state of negotiations aimed at clinching a post-Brexit trade deal.

Both sides have accused each other of being unwilling to compromise on key issues, with sticking points and “red lines” remaining over fishing rights, competition rules and the governance of any final deal.

As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson prepares to travel to Brussels this week for face-to-face meetings with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, there is hope for a breakthrough.

But in the meantime, officials on both sides continue to comment, loudly, on the efforts being made — and the remaining obstacles — before a deal can be reached.

Johnson warned Tuesday that talks were not in a good place.

“You’ve got to be optimistic, you’ve got to believe that there’s the power of sweet reason to get this thing over the line. But I’ve got to tell you, it’s looking very, very difficult at the moment,” he told reporters.

Johnson will nonetheless go to the Belgian capital this week (the timing is uncertain but Wednesday or Friday have been mooted as possibilities) to meet his European counterpart, to see if in-person talks can help resolve the impasse between negotiators.

Von der Leyen said Monday that both sides have asked their chief negotiators to draw up a list “of the remaining differences to be discussed in person in the coming days.”

Britain is keen to stress it wants a deal; a no-deal scenario is likely to bring upheaval and higher costs of business to firms and exporters on both sides of the English Channel.

Both sides have accused each other of making unreasonable demands. The U.K. has felt that the EU has not understood its need for sovereignty over its own affairs and future, while the EU believes it must do whatever it takes to protect the integrity of its single market.

Some on the British side have accused the EU of changing the goal posts late in the talks, and of making unfair, new, demands.

The U.K.’s Health Secretary Matt Hancock insinuated that the ball was in the EU’s court, stating on Tuesday that Johnson was “straining every sinew to try to get a deal that works for both the U.K. and the EU, that deal is potentially doable but the EU obviously has to want to do it,” he told Sky News.

War of words

The post Gloom, doom and a little slice of hope: Brexit trade deal hangs in the balance appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

Talks are taking place in Brussels before Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen are due to speak again at 17.00 CET on Monday.

Michel Barnier briefed EU ambassadors first thing on Monday before speaking to MEPs. But there was no sign of a breakthrough, or even light at the end of the tunnel. Ireland’s foreign minister described the EU chief negotiator’s message as “very downbeat”.

“I would say he is very gloomy, and obviously very cautious about the ability to make progress today,” Simon Coveney told Irish broadcaster RTE.

UK Foreign Office Minister James Cleverly also acknowledged the situation had changed little. “Yes, time is tight. Yes, it might go right to the wire and, indeed, it may well be that we don’t get the deal. But I think a deal is possible and we’ll keep working towards it,” he said.

The British Prime Minister and the European Commission President gave the go-ahead for talks to resume on Saturday, after a day’s pause when both sides of negotiators agreed they could go no further.

Unless an agreement is struck in the next few days then, by default, a no-deal scenario will loom ever larger into frame. This would bring extra costs and disruption to a relationship that is due to undergo abrupt changes in any case when the transition period expires at the end of the year.

Sunday night brought reports quoting EU sources that the two sides were converging towards a deal on one of the major bones of contention, fishing rights. The reports were quickly denied on the British side, and dismissed on Monday morning by Barnier himself.

It’s understood that important differences remain on the other key issues too: future competition rules, and a mechanism for policing a deal. The two matters are linked: in return for granting the UK privileged access to its markets, the EU wants to make sure it can take effective action should Britain seek to undercut European business or take action to gain an unfair advantage.

The question of enforcement has taken on added importance since the UK’s move to override part of last year’s binding divorce deal over arrangements for Northern Ireland.

The British government intends to continue down that path when the legislation in question, the Internal Market Bill, comes back before the House of Commons on Monday. Later this week it is expected to introduce a taxation bill also containing provisions which contravene the withdrawal deal.

It means the EU could find itself in the position of having to take a decision over an agreement on the future relationship, at the very moment the UK is reneging on the international treaty the two sides struck barely a year ago after a long, tortuous process.

At this stage, politics is as important as the technical detail: both sides need to avoid the impression of caving in. France, which has repeated a threat to veto a “bad deal”, has led a group of countries anxious to protect EU fishing rights and the integrity of the single market. The UK government, meanwhile, is adamant that an agreement must respect British sovereignty which it says is the essence of Brexit.

It is a defining moment for Johnson, whose Brexit cheerleading played a huge part in the vote to leave the EU and then carried him on to Downing Street.

The prime minister has stressed the importance of delivering the kind of independence promised by slogans such as “take back control”. But he now faces a reality that implies either compromise, or pursuing a no-deal which would mean tariffs and other costly barriers to trade, plunging relations with Europe to a new low in the process.

The EU, meanwhile, needs to determine the extent to which it seeks to defend its own “red lines”, or give ground in order to secure an agreement and avoid a scenario that would hit its own economy too.

Even if the UK and EU negotiators do reach an accord, that is not the end of the story. The legal text of a deal would need to go before EU national leaders — due to meet at a European Council summit later this week — and be approved by the UK and European parliaments.

The United Kingdom left the European Union last January but has continued to be subject to and apply most EU rules throughout the transition period. Deal or no deal, major changes will kick in on trade and other matters from January 1.

What they say about the prospects for a deal

“We are going to see what happens,” said Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost as he arrived in Brussels on Sunday, amid an ever gloomier outlook that a breakthrough could be achieved on all outstanding points.

“I think unless we can resolve these quite fundamental divergences…we are going to have to take a position in the next few days,” UK Agriculture Minister George Eustice said earlier.

“My gut instinct is that it’s 50-50 right now and I don’t think one can be overly-optimistic about a resolution emerging,” Ireland’s Prime Minister Michéal Martin told the broadcaster RTE on Sunday.

“We’ll see if there is a way forward,” said Michel Barnier on Twitter on Saturday evening, after von der Leyen and Johnson had given the go-ahead for talks to continue.

The post Brexit trade talks: Barnier ‘gloomy’ on progress amid last-ditch drive for a deal appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

The European Union and Britain said on Friday there were still substantial differences over a Brexit trade deal as the EU chief negotiator prepared to travel to London in a last-ditch attempt to avoid a tumultuous finale to the five-year Brexit crisis.

With just five weeks left until the United Kingdom finally exits the EU’s orbit on Dec. 31, both sides are calling on the other to compromise on the three main issues of contention — fishing, state aid and how to resolve any future disputes.

The two sides will shortly resume face-to-face negotiations after they had to be suspended last week when one of EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s team tested positive for Covid-19.

“Clearly there are substantial and important differences still to be bridged but we’re getting on with it,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters.

“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.”

Barnier said on Twitter he would travel to London on Friday evening for talks with Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost.

“Same significant divergences persist,” Barnier said.

Neither side has so far shown a willingness to shift enough on the three outstanding issues to allow a breakthrough.

“It is late, but a deal is still possible, and I will continue to talk until it’s clear that it isn’t,” Frost said.

‘Few days left’

The post Brexit goes down to the wire, as the EU and UK say big differences remain appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

As the two sides re-engaged in the troubled discussions, with less than seven weeks to go before the end of the transition period, Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, said the negotiations were “not in a good place” on fishing rights.

“We really are in the last week to 10 days of this, if there is not a major breakthrough over the next week to 10 days then I think we really are in trouble and the focus will shift to preparing for a no-trade deal and all the disruption that that brings,” he said.

“I think the British government understand only too well what’s required for a deal this week, the real question is whether the political appetite is there to do it. I think we will [get a deal], that’s been my prediction for a while, but I won’t be shocked if it all falls apart.”

The outstanding issues remain the level of access to UK waters provided to EU fishing fleets, fair competition rules for business – including rules on domestic subsidies – and the mechanism in the final treaty for resolving future disputes.

The UK’s chief negotiator, David Frost, tweeted on Sunday that there had been “some progress in a positive direction in recent days”. But he insisted that his negotiating position on the most contentious issues would not soften in light of the departure of Boris Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, the former campaign director for Vote Leave.

It is understood that common ground is being found on the shape of a deal for how both sides will regulate domestic subsidies. But there is no agreement on a mechanism on maintaining similar baseline environmental, labour and social standards in the years to come. The UK insists it will not tie itself to the Brussels rulebook.

Coveney particularly emphasised the danger posed by the issue of fishing rights to blow up the negotiations despite its comparatively small economic value.

“It’s a lot more emotive, and a lot more political quite frankly,” he said. “What the British government has promised to their fishing industry, versus Michel Barnier’s negotiating mandate from the EU is a very, very wide gap.”

He continued: “It’s not good … the negotiations are not in a good place when it comes to fishing. There hasn’t really been any success in closing the gap between the positions of either side and until we find a way of doing that there isn’t going to be an agreement, so we’re in the same place in fishing, as we were in mid-summer.

“Neither side really has budged from their position, there’s been minor concessions discussed on both sides but really it hasn’t moved anywhere.”

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, had hoped to provide a positive progress report to the bloc’s 27 heads of state at a videoconference call on Thursday but the timeline appears to be slipping.

Senior MEPs have insisted that the European parliament needs at least three weeks to scrutinise any deal before a vote on ratification. A vote is pencilled in for 16 December but sources said an extraordinary parliamentary session could be announced for 28 December.

The post Brexit: major breakthrough needed to avert no-deal, says Irish minister appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

The British government has vowed to reinstate parts of its Internal Market Bill, despite heavy defeats in the House of Lords which threw them out on Monday night.

The British parliament’s upper house voted by large margins to ditch clauses which break international law, and give the government powers to override parts of the Brexit divorce agreement that sealed the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.

But the government says it will restore the controversial sections concerning arrangements for Northern Ireland, when the bill returns to the House of Commons in the coming weeks.

The move could cause a rift between the UK and US President-elect Joe Biden, who has previously warned that that Brexit must not jeopardise the Good Friday Agreement (a peace accord which ended a decades-long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland).

The legislation has also been condemned by the EU and scores of British politicians, including from many in Johnson’s ruling Conservative Party.

The British government says the Internal Market Bill is needed as an insurance policy to ensure smooth trade among all parts of the UK — especially Northern Ireland, which shares a border with the EU — no matter what happens to UK-EU trade after Brexit.

“We’ve been consistently clear that the clauses represent a legal safety net to protect the integrity of the UK’s internal market and the huge gains of the (Northern Ireland) peace process,” the government said in a statement.

In the House of Lords, former Conservative leader Michael Howard said he was “dismayed” by the bill and urged the government to think again.

Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, said in a tweet that there could be no UK-EU trade deal if the UK passed “a law designed to break International Law”.

US Democratic Representative Brendan Boyle told Channel 4 the issue was “a clear red line for us… If the UK moves forward with this Internal Market Bill, and decides essentially to rip up the Withdrawal Agreement that it negotiated and signed less than a year ago, then there will be no US-UK trade deal — period.”

The Brexit Withdrawal Agreement has the force of an international treaty and was struck last year by the prime minister, who after taking office renegotiated terms over Northern Ireland that had brought deadlock in parliament and delayed the UK’s departure from the bloc.

MPs on all sides recognised the binding nature of the deal’s terms. Boris Johnson threw out his predecessor Theresa May’s original “backstop” plan for Northern Ireland, which was repeatedly rejected by parliament and contributed heavily to her downfall.

Under his revised deal, Northern Ireland remains in the UK’s customs territory but will follow some EU rules and be subject to EU oversight. But the Internal Market Bill means the UK could alter bureaucratic requirements and change EU state aid rules.

Critics say this has the effect of shifting a planned trade border from the Irish Sea to the land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. The UK government has admitted it breaches international law by overriding parts of the Brexit divorce deal.

All this comes as talks resume in London between EU and UK Brexit negotiators, in plain sight now of a real hard deadline to strike a post-Brexit deal on trade and future ties.

Both sides hope that an agreement could effectively settle the row over the Internal Market Bill by making it redundant. However, the talks remain deadlocked on key issues.

The UK left the EU last January and the post-Brexit transition period expires at the end of the year, bringing new barriers to trade and other arrangements. Failure to strike a deal would see both sides reverting to basic international trade rules, aggravating disruption and leaving many arrangements in legal limbo.

The post Brexit: UK stokes tensions with EU and US in doubling down on contentious bill appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.

These words were uttered by Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago in a eulogy to the UK’s role in Europe at the end of her premiership.

Many British Conservatives still idolise the former British prime minister for standing up to centralised European power in defence of the nation-state. Her stance inspired others to follow a path which ultimately led to Brexit.

But today’s Tories are less likely to quote her aversion to state intervention, which helped restrictions to subsidies become enshrined in European Union rules.

Indeed, Boris Johnson’s government is locked in a battle with EU negotiators, fighting for the right to lavish funds on British business, while still retaining access to European markets after the transition period expires at the end of the year.

The dispute over state aid is one of the main obstacles to a post-Brexit trade deal, along with overall fairness in competition, fishing rights, and a mechanism to enforce a deal.

Both sides now have their backs to the wall ahead of this week’s EU summit, with little sign of a breakthrough. Yet some experts in the field insist there is scope for compromise on subsidy policy, which could pave the way for an overall accord.

Level playing field — or slippery slope?

As part of the divorce deal that sealed the UK’s departure from the EU last January, both sides agreed to commit to a “level playing field” in future competition, covering issues such as state aid, social and workers’ rights, the environment, climate change and tax.

These engagements came in the Political Declaration on future relations, legally non-binding but seen as a framework for forming the basis for a post-Brexit trade deal. Both sides agree to “robust commitments” to prevent “unfair competitive advantages”.

Specifically, the EU wants more details of the UK’s plans to regulate state aid once the country leaves the bloc’s trade structures in 2021. The British government, however, does not want its hands tied, and in September said it would not divulge its detailed plan for state aid until next year.

To some observers, the conflict over policy on subsidies for industry is surprising. The UK has been relatively frugal compared to other European countries.

Thatcher’s view, fuelled by the UK’s struggle to save ailing industries in the 1970s, illustrates the traditional hostility to the practice on the political right, but it does not particularly chime with Conservative philosophy in 2020.

Fight for the right to spend

Boris Johnson’s government has promised to spend big to “level up” traditional Labour heartlands, which swung behind the Tories in last year’s election. His top aide and Brexit architect Dominic Cummings wants to free up the state to help make the UK technology sector a world-beater.

In September, the UK said it would cease to follow EU state aid rules at the end of 2020, in favour of less restrictive World Trade Organization (WTO) regulations from January.

Britain’s chief negotiator David Frost said in a statement on October 2 after the last formal round of talks that the EU needed to “move further” in allowing the UK to set its own rules on the level playing field, including subsidy policy, without constraints going beyond those appropriate to a trade deal.

But last week he gave a more upbeat message, telling a British parliamentary committee that both sides were going “further” than usual under a free trade deal to agree on a framework for subsidy policy. They were looking at “high-level principles”, giving examples of “commitments that we are willing to make”.

Lord Frost also said the EU had dropped its original demand for UK alignment with Brussels’ state aid rules. EU negotiators under Michel Barnier are reportedly calling instead for details of British regulation and enforcement plans.

EU and UK ‘not far apart’

Alexander Rose, a lawyer specialising in state aid law and subsidy control who has worked for both the British government and the European Commission, believes the two sides are not far apart but “not within touching distance” either.

He says an apparent agreement on overarching principles is encouraging, but the EU will be looking for more detail. “I think the key practicality is: will there be a regulator? And the second part is, how will the UK put in place the rules around those principles?” he told Euronews.

“Ultimately the landing zone was always going to be some kind of UK state aid regime… We now know roughly that we’re going to have a regime that’s going to ensure that distortions in competition are addressed. But there’s a very, very short time to put these rules into place.”

Last month Alexander Rose co-led a group of lawyers who sent an open letter to Boris Johnson offering to help design a post-Brexit UK subsidy regime.

A recent UK Institute for Government report said the UK had much to gain from a compromise on state aid with the EU. Far from tying its hands, the report argues that the UK would benefit from a strong domestic subsidy control system, regardless of whether a trade deal is struck.

It recommends that the UK adopts a “parallel” system in time for January — copying core features of EU state aid but with domestic oversight — before developing a new regime later.

State aid accord ‘could resolve Northern Ireland row’

Control of state aid policy is so important to the British government that the issue was put forward as one of the justifications for its “legal safety net” plan to override part of the EU divorce deal, breaching international law.

Under Article 10 of the binding Northern Ireland Protocol, the European Commission has jurisdiction over subsidies affecting trade in goods between Northern Ireland and the EU.

But the controversial UK Internal Market Bill gives British ministers the power to change EU state aid rules on subsidies for Northern Irish firms should no trade deal be struck with the EU.

It is still making its way through the British parliament even though the EU Commission has brought infringement proceedings, and MEPs have threatened not to ratify any trade deal while the bill is still alive.

The Institute for Government argues that a strong UK-wide subsidy control regime could provide a solution to this major source of disagreement between the UK and the EU.

“A compromise on state aid could make it possible to override the application of Article 10 without breaking international law,” writes the Institute’s Alex Stojanovic.

“If the UK can show that it has a strong domestic subsidy control regime, alongside a workable dispute resolution mechanism for contentious subsidies, the EU may allow for Article 10 to be superseded by the UK regime, solving a major headache for the UK and EU over the future application of subsidy control in Northern Ireland,” he said.

Would the UK lose face by compromising?

The Institute for Government report argues that an agreement with the EU on subsidy control would enable the UK to challenge future attempts by European governments to use state aid.

Lord Frost admitted last week that the UK could benefit from a dispute resolution process on the matter: “I can see us being ready to use them just as much as the EU in future,” he told the parliamentary committee.

Lawyer Alexander Rose says the principles outlined by the chief negotiator bring the UK position close to the declarations set out in the divorce deal’s Political Declaration.

“I think from a Brexiteer point of view, they should feel pretty happy about the result,” he told Euronews.

“I think that ultimately, they have avoided having EU state aid rules, these principles will cut both ways, so therefore what they’re ensuring is that the EU system doesn’t become much more permissive, and they end up in a sort of race to the bottom, and finally these are principles that make sense for our subsidies.”

The UK’s chief negotiator has said he believes the most difficult issue left in the negotiations is fisheries, a reflection perhaps of his confidence that the state aid conundrum is close to resolution.

EU leaders and officials have continued to warn that despite some signs of progress, large gaps remain over the main issues. The European Council President Charles Michel last week called for the UK to “put its cards on the table”.

For his part, Boris Johnson warned last month that the UK would walk away from the talks if no deal was done by mid-October. With Brexit deadline looming, the coming weeks, or possibly even days, will tell whether an agreement is possible, or not.

The post Brexit: Can the state subsidy row blocking a EU-UK trade deal be resolved? appeared first on News Agency nabakhabar.