Original title: The framework of the Brexit trade agreement has been reached and the wording of the agreement is being studied
After nearly 10 months of negotiations that have often caused concern, the UK and the EU have reached a framework for a post-Brexit trade agreement and are currently finalizing the wording of the agreement.
According to officials familiar with the situation, the UK and the EU have reached a framework for a post-Brexit trade agreement.
The official, who declined to be named, said that the negotiator was working on finishing the agreement. Others cautioned that the agreement has not yet been finalized, and if any news of an agreement is announced, it may be several hours away.
The pound rose 1.6% to $1.3571 against the dollar, the biggest intraday gain in more than a week. British 10-year government bond yields are expected to record the biggest increase since March.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Lein have personally intervened in recent days and talked several times to make a final attempt to reach an agreement before Britain leaves the EU single market at the end of this month.
If an agreement can be reached, it will put an end to the nearly five-year negotiations since the 2016 Brexit referendum and lay the foundation for future trade and cooperation between the UK and the EU. Earlier this week, hundreds of trucks were congested near the southern British port of Dover, a reminder of the consequences of a failure to reach an agreement at the end of the Brexit transition on December 31.
Barnier said at a meeting of ambassadors that the negotiations had made progress.
Negotiations were restarted at the European Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels earlier on Wednesday. The discussion focused on two major differences surrounding the fishery issue: the access rights of EU ships in British waters, and what the EU has if the UK restricts access in the future Power to implement retaliatory tariffs.
The two sides have regarded the agreed fisheries arrangement as a prerequisite for reaching a trade agreement, although each year EU ships fishing in British waters is worth only 650 million euros (790 million US dollars), which is the tip of the iceberg of 512 billion euros of goods exchanged between the two sides each year.
Diplomats with knowledge of the situation pointed out that the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told the EU’s 27 envoys on Tuesday that the negotiations have made progress and that it is possible to sign an agreement before Christmas-as long as the UK is prepared to make further progress on fisheries issues. concession. Negotiations may continue after Christmas, or they may break completely.
Senior EU officials say that the decision is in Johnson’s hands, while those who understand the position of the UK say that the responsibility for action lies with the EU.
The diplomats of the EU working group have discussed how to implement the potential agreement from January 1 if there is not enough time for the European Parliament to conduct formal approval. Although the above-mentioned procedural preparatory work is not enough to prove that the agreement has been reached, it implies that the EU is preparing for an agreement.
A diplomat with knowledge of the preparations said that if an agreement is reached, the European Commission will publish an unofficial draft text and send it to the member states and the European Parliament. According to the plan, EU envoys in Brussels will have two days to discuss and approve the draft. The written procedure for signing the free trade agreement will then be initiated, which can then be published in the EU’s official gazette before December 31.
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