SULAIMANI (ESTA) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen instructed their negotiators to resume trade talks on Sunday in a last ditch attempt to bridge significant differences.
The decision to review the long-running talks after they stalled on Friday over three of the thorniest issues suggests both sides believe there is still some hope they can secure a deal governing almost $1 trillion of trade a year, Reuters reported.
In a joint statement, the two leaders said that while there were serious differences, “we agreed that a further effort should be undertaken by our negotiating teams to assess whether they can be resolved.”
“No agreement is feasible if these issues are not resolved,” they said after speaking for more than an hour on Saturday.
“We are therefore instructing our chief negotiators to reconvene tomorrow in Brussels. We will speak again on Monday evening.”
After months of talks, there has barely been any movement on three areas of disagreement-fisheries, ensuring fair competition guarantees and ways to solve future disputes.
Reuters cited sources from both sides as saying that French demands over fishing rights in British waters remained a key issue, and some in Johnson’s Conservative Party suggested that EU officials had to convince French President Emmanuel Macron to back a deal.
Two EU officials said the talks would resume where they had left off. One described the suspension and then resumption of talks as theatrics.
“Each needs a bit of drama to able to sell this,” they said.
With less than four weeks to go before Britain completes its journey out of the bloc, both sides must get agreement on any deal from their parliaments and the EU executive needs to get approval from all 27 member states.
(Esta Media Network/Reuters)
