By The U.K. and the EU are in the last leg of negotiations over a postBrexit trade agreement, according to Britains foreign minister, with only a few weeks left to approve any potential deal. The U.K. stopped being a member of the EU in January, but it agreed to keep following European rules until the end of 2020 so both sides could formulate new trade arrangements. However, this has proven to be a difficult task with talks stuck over the same three issues since the spring. I do think this is a very significant week, the last real major week, Dominic Raab, told the BBC on Sunday.
Both sides need to reach new trade arrangements and rectify them in their respective parliaments before the end of the year. Failure to achieve that could lead to a nodeal scenario higher costs and barriers for exporters on both sides. According to Raab, a breakthrough depends on overcoming differences over a fairly narrow number of issues. The major sticking points remain over fishing, competition policy and governance of any future deal. They have different views on how much access European fishing crews should have on U.K. waters, and on what sort of market competition rules should be applied to ensure Britains departure does not jeopardize the EUs single market.
Speaking on Monday morning, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said that fishing is a more difficult issue than competition rules. Without an agreement on fishing, the whole thing could fall on the back of it, he said, stressing…
