By Alistair Smout, Gabriela Baczynska
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LONDON / BRUSSELS, Dec 5 (Reuters) – UK and European Union negotiators will meet in Brussels on Sunday in what the British team called a final roll of the dice to strike a post-Brexit trade deal.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke on Saturday and instructed their teams to resume meetings in a last attempt to bridge significant differences.
Both sides acknowledge that time is running out to reach an agreement before a transition agreement expires at the end of the year and sources gave a pessimistic reading following the Johnson and Von der Leyen conversation.
“This is the last roll of the dice,” said a British source close to the negotiations. “There is a fair deal to make it work for both parties, but this will only happen if the EU is willing to uphold the fundamental principles of sovereignty and control.”
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said his meeting Sunday with his British counterpart David Frost will show whether a new trade deal can be sealed.
In a joint statement after their conversation, Johnson and Von der Leyen said that no agreement “is feasible” if differences are not resolved on the three thorniest issues: governance, fisheries and competition rules.
Negotiations came to a halt on Friday, as hopes for a deal raised earlier in the week evaporated, and the British team said the EU made demands inconsistent with its sovereignty and warned the talks could end without a deal.
If they fail to reach a pact, a five-year Brexit process will end in a messy fashion just as London and its former EU partners grapple with the economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Edited in Spanish by Carlos Serrano
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