The UK government will tell the EU on Friday it is not going to seek an extension to the Brexit transition period, the paymaster general, Penny Mordaunt, has said.
She told the House of Commons in an update on Brexit talks that she and Michael Gove would “emphasise that we will not be extending the transition period” when they meet EU counterparts at a Brexit joint committee meeting on Friday.
It led to an immediate accusation of the government behaving recklessly, with the Scottish National party MP Pete Wishart accusing the Conservatives of trying to “heap misery upon misery” with Covid-19 and Brexit “the twin horsemen of the economic apocalypse” denying any prospect of recovery.
Mordaunt insisted the country would not be “barrelling off a cliff edge” and hoped to have a deal by autumn. It said the government would be able to divert money from the EU coffers to to “level up” the British economy.
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, pressed the government to honour the “oven-ready” deal Boris Johnson promised in his general election campaign.
She was speaking as the former environment secretary Theresa Villiers said the government would not succumb to EU demands to access British fishing waters.
“We are not going to see the compromises coming from Boris’s government,” Villiers said, arguing that the common fisheries policy (CFP) was “grossly unfair”.
Her comments came days after Brexit talks over a future trade deal hit the buffers with four major areas of disagreement, including access to British seas for EU boats.
“I just don’t see that the UK government is going to just shift in any substantive way from what is put on the table already,” Villiers told an Institute for Government webinar on Tuesday.
She said the government was “intensely conscious of how crucial fisheries are to the Scottish economy” and fishing communities and would defend them.
British borders are not ready for leaving the single market at the end of the year, with a lack of information and a shortage of customs officers making it impossible to prepare, MPs have been told.
The government is well short of recruiting the 50,000 customs officers it says are needed, with trade experts warning that restrictions on space for some ports to expand are also causing some problems.
"We're not ready, and we're not entirely sure what we need to be ready for," Dr Anna Jerzewska from the UK Trade Policy Observatory told the Commons EU committee.
"We don't really know what's going to happen at the border on 1 January ... we don't know how this border will function."
Dr Jerzewska said information provided by the government so far such as what tariffs would be charged on goods was welcome, but that the business community was waiting for ministers to explain what the UK's border operating model would be before it could take concrete steps.
"In terms of border readiness, one of the issues here is the fact there's a lot of different actors that need to be ready: HMRC, border force, companies, as well as customs brokers, freight operators and port authorities," she said.
"We also have certain places where this readiness will cause more of an issue than in other ports: we have our roll-on-roll-off ports where the readiness aspect is much more complicated than in other types of port because of time constraints and lack of space."
Sam Lowe, a senior fellow and trade expert at the Centre for European Reform told the same hearing of the Commons EU future relationship committee that many things needed to be sorted irrespective of whether the government managed to get a deal with the EU or not.
"From a preparedness point of view, due to the nature of the future relationship that is on the table, most of these questions apply whether there is a free trade agreement or not," he said.
"Lots of the information that's currently missing needs to be provided regardless: so I would echo Anna's call that it would be very useful to see the business preparedness model soon." ...
Dr Jerzewska highlighted a shortfall in the number of customs officers compared to the number planned by the government and suggested a training was well behind a target set by ministers.
Asked whether there would be enough, she said: "The simple answer here is no. Even before Brexit, the referendum, there's been a short supply of these people. Customs has always been one of these skills that has been lacking in the UK ... we've never actually had enough people of customs knowledge for all the conditions and requirements that we have.
"I think HMRC customs academy, I think the number of around 1,000 people. When you look at other countries that's actually a good number, a realistic number of people you can train.
"The expectation to train 50,000 people, first of all, we don't have them because we don't have 50,000 people interested in a career in customs, strangely enough. She added that this target "wasn't a very realistic expectation".
The European parliament could veto any trade deal between the UK and the European Union that lacks “robust” safeguards to ensure fair competition and strong standards on the environment and workers’ rights, according to a leaked document.
A draft resolution, seen by the Guardian, which will be put to a vote on Friday, underlines the implicit threat to block the EU-UK trade deal. Urging the British government to “revise its negotiation position”, the text states that a level playing field is the “necessary condition for the European parliament to give its consent to a trade agreement with the UK”.
The level playing field – common standards on environment, workers’ rights and state subsidies for companies – is one of the main stumbling blocks of Brexit talks that has contributed to the current deadlock.
The parliament’s text underlines the narrow room for manoeuvre available to the EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, who last week hinted at a possible concession on state aid – the rules that limit government subsidies for companies. Barnier declined to back publicly the EU’s opening demand that European rules on state aid must be written into UK law.
The parliament resolution, however, states that EU standards must be safeguarded to avoid a “race to the bottom”, while revealing little slack to escape the EU’s opening position of matching EU rules on state aid – so-called “dynamic alignment”.
Brussels sources have played down talk of imminent compromise on the crucial issue of state aid.
Three-phased plan for Brexit border checks welcomed as UK formally rejects extension to transition period
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The government plan involves a phased implementation of controls in January, April and July next year.
In the first stage, full customs checks and tariffs will be imposed on “controlled” goods such as alcohol and tobacco. But importers of “standard” goods ranging from clothes to electronics will have up to six months to complete customs declarations and to pay tariffs, if any apply. However, they will need to keep sufficient records of imports and make preparations for VAT payments.
There will also be checks on live animals and high-risk plants.
In April, the health checks will be extended to all products of animal origin including, meat, pet food, honey, milk or egg products with pre-notification of imports required by the authorities.
From July all goods will be subjected to customs declarations at the point of importation and relevant tariffs, which will be determined by the outcome of the current Brexit talks on the free-trade agreement.
Business leaders have long warned that new checks will mean major disruption to the supply chain and those who trade in fresh and chilled food still face checks on the EU side in key ports including Calais, Rotterdam, Zeebrugge and Dublin.
Brussels officials have said the EU has no intention of relaxing checks on UK goods entering the bloc. “The UK has stated on several occasions it wants to take back the control and I would say that it is up to the UK how they do it,” Šefčovič told reporters after his meeting with Gove.
The new trading regime will involve fresh infrastructure at ports and airports with a £50m support package to get an estimated 50,000 customs agents, freight forwards and other experts in place for 2021.
Border inspection posts will also have to be built, something neighbouring countries including France and Ireland put in place last year in preparation for no-deal planning.
The UK has urged the European Union to reach a post-Brexit free trade agreement “by the end of the summer” as Boris Johnson held talks with Brussels chiefs.
The UK had previously indicated that it could walk away from talks with the EU if the “broad outline” of a deal was not visible by the June meeting. But officials played down the prospect of “drama” at the summit, which was being conducted by video link.
Johnson was expected to say that the talks need to be “swiftly concluded”, providing the public and business with certainty on the way forward.
The PM’s official spokesman said: “You can expect the prime minister to welcome the fact that the European Commission president has agreed to an intensified timetable for FTA negotiations in July and also expect the prime minister to urge renewed energy and commitment to reach an agreement by the end of the summer.
“The high-level meeting was always envisaged as a moment to push the negotiations forward. We now need to get this resolved and deliver certainty for businesses at home and in the EU as soon as possible.
“We are looking to agree a high quality FTA based on the agreements the EU has already reached with other countries, but whatever happens we will be ready for January 1 when we will take back control of our laws, border and money.”
Bloc leaders agree to strive to find early common ground in effort to avoid economic chaos
Boris Johnson has received a boost to plans to secure a trade deal with the European Union by the end of the summer after EU leaders agreed to strive to find early common ground on trade and security to avoid unnecessary economic chaos next year.
But there were immediate signs of tensions on the horizon with the president of the EU council, Charles Michel, warning in tweets that the EU would not accept a “pig in the poke” and it would “never accept an agreement that goes against interests of the union”.
After an hour-long video summit with EU leaders on Monday both sides said they would strive to get to a swift outline of a deal, with sources in Brussels talking up the prospects of success.
In a joint statement following the meeting, both sides acknowledged that talks had stalled after four rounds. But they added they must move forward for sakes of citizens on both sides.
“The parties agreed nevertheless that new momentum was required. They supported the plans agreed by chief negotiators to intensify the talks in July and to create the most conducive conditions for concluding and ratifying a deal before the end of 2020. This should include, if possible, finding an early understanding on the principles underlying any agreement,” they said.
In the meeting they also “underlined their intention to work hard to deliver a relationship which would work in the interests of the citizens of the union and of the United Kingdom”, they said, in an indication that both are still aiming and hoping for a comprehensive and ambitious deal.
Johnson was joined at the meeting by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, his chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, and the ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow.
The EU was represented by Ursula von der Leyen, Michel and David Sassoli, presidents of the European commission, council and parliament respectively.
The UK risks losing its real-time access to a watchlist of suspected terrorists if it does not strike a comprehensive Brexit deal on justice and security, peers have been told.
The concerns of the policing consequences of a collapse in Brexit talks were raised by members of the Lords EU security and justice sub-committee during questioning of the Home Office minister James Brokenshire.
Fears were also raised over the future of the European arrest warrant (EAW) system and the prospect of the UK becoming a haven for foreign criminals trying to evade justice from EU member states.
The Labour peer Lord Rowlands described the situation prior to the EAW system as “hopeless” as it allowed fugitives to roam freely in countries without extradition treaties.
“I hope we will agree that we want to avoid going back to the old system, because it did allow criminal havens; [with] those characters who lived on the Spanish Costa del Sol immune from any formal proceedings. I’m hoping you are not suggesting that we might have to go back to that, are you?” said Rowlands.
His concerns came as an ally of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the MEP Nathalie Loiseau, warned that a crash out from the EU without a deal would mean weaker ties on security.
Brokenshire said he was optimistic the intensified programme of negotiations scheduled for July and August would deliver a result for both sides.
He was confident sense would prevail as there would be “a mutual loss of capability” in tackling crime and security if negotiations collapsed.
Deal or no deal, the UK “will continue to be a global leader of security and one of the safest countries in the world” with access to Interpol and bilateral intelligence channels, he said.
Peers shared his hopes about security but questioned how the UK would fare if it lost its access to real-time information from EU databases.
Lord Anderson pointed out police in Dover could currently use handheld devices to get real-time information on passengers from the Schengen Information System (SIS II) database allowing suspects to be “questioned before they could simply melt away”.
“It rather sounds as though the legalistic approach that’s being taken to SIS II [in Brexit talks] means that we’re not going to have real-time access to data,” said Anderson, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation in the UK between 2011 and 2017.
Brokenshire rejected those concerns, pointing out that the UK had only joined SIS II in 2015 and Ireland was not a member of SIS II, suggesting it was possible to run counter-terror operations without access to the Schengen databases.
“I remain optimistic as to what the negotiations in the coming weeks may bring because of, I think, that sense of shared endeavour,” Brokenshire said, adding that the published approach of the UK supported the “national interest and equally supports those broader interests for the EU security too”.
Lord Ricketts, a former diplomat and the chair of the committee, questioned the “coherence” of the UK’s Brexit approach. It was looking for a Canada-style agreement in trade but a specially close arrangement in security and justice, “an equivalent position to that which perhaps Schengen countries have, or EEA countries have like Norway, Iceland but no other country”, he said.
Brexit has squeezed the political middle ground in Northern Ireland and pushed more people into their unionist and nationalist trenches.
A post-Brexit opinion poll has found that those in the region deeming themselves neither unionist or nationalist has fallen to 39%. The Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey revealed that this figure was the lowest in 15 years. As late as 2017, 50% surveyed said they were neither.
The poll of 1,200 people taken from September 2019 to February this year also reveals that more Catholics now describe themselves as nationalist since Brexit. Just under 60% of Catholics in Northern Ireland now categorise themselves as nationalist compared with 50% two years ago.
At the same time, the researchers from Queen’s University Belfast’s Ark project found 67% of Protestants now classified themselves as unionist compared with 55% in 2018.
The Brexit effect however has not created any real sense of existential threat to the union among unionists, according to the NILT.
Among unionists, 62% think a united Ireland is unlikely within the next 20 years. Significantly, 37% of nationalists also think there will not be Irish unity within the next two decades.
The report concludes: “we are seeing a retrenchment of identity positions” in relation to traditional political allegiances.
Brexit has not dramatically affected unionists’ thinking, even among those who were pro-EU in the 2016 referendum. While there was a slight increase of 7% among unionists who said “don’t know”’ to the prospect of a united Ireland, Brexit made no difference to the overwhelming majority of those in favour of remaining British.
Yet all three political categories – unionist, nationalist and neither – appear to continue to support the devolved institutions at Stormont.
Just under 70% of the population still support the Good Friday agreement and power-sharing government. The poll showed that 35% were happy with the agreement and did not want it changed; 33% were positive about the peace accord but wanted minor changes.
The authors of the report found this robust backing for devolution surprising given that for three years the local assembly was deadlocked with the main parties, Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionists, unable to form a government.
Despite widespread cross-community anger over the three years of deadlock at Stormont, only 10% of those surveyed said they would like to see the UK parliament in London make all the decisions for Northern Ireland.
Among the overall population, only 30% said a united Ireland was likely within the next 20 years, while 46% said Irish unity was unlikely in the same time frame.
Dr Paula Devine, the co-director of Ark from the school of social sciences, education and social work at Queen’s, said: “From this data, we can see that support for the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and the devolved institutions has been maintained among people of all backgrounds.
“However, it is striking that 2019 also saw a strengthening of unionist and nationalist identities and growing pressure on the so-called middle ground.”
The Ark NILT survey has been running since 1998 and provides an important source of data on how opinions in Northern Ireland have changed over the past 21 years.
BERLIN (Reuters) - The German government is urging other EU states to prepare for a no deal Brexit, according an internal document that casts doubt on Britain’s optimism over chances of an early agreement on its future ties with the bloc.
Britain left the European Union on Jan. 31 and their relationship is governed by a transition arrangement that keeps previous rules in place while new terms are negotiated.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who confirmed last week that Britain has no intention of extending that transition beyond 2020, wants to strike a free trade deal quickly.
On Monday, he suggested an agreement could be reached in July with “a bit of oomph”. But the German government document, dated June 15 and seen by Reuters, shows Berlin expects the negotiations to take longer.
“From September, the negotiations enter a hot phase,” it read. “Britain is already escalating threats in Brussels, wants to settle as much as possible in the shortest possible time and hopes to achieve last-minute success in the negotiations.”
The German Foreign Office was convinced the transition deal would not be extended beyond the end of this year, the government document showed.
“It is therefore important to preserve the unity of the 27, to continue to insist on parallel progress in all areas (overall package) and to make it clear that there will be no agreement at any price,” the document read.
“Therefore, both national and European contingency planning would now have to start in order to be prepared for a no deal 2.0.”
The withdrawal agreement on Britain’s departure was only struck after bitter negotiations that threatened to end in a no deal Brexit, but Berlin did not believe the situation was as critical this time around.
“The situation is less serious than in 2019, as important regulations, for example for citizens, were sorted out in the withdrawal agreement,” the document read.
With the two sides so far apart and little time left to negotiate, there are concerns that London’s decision not to extend the transition might lead to a cliff edge that could compound the economic damage caused by the coronavirus crisis.
Deal could lower welfare of the population and shrink GDP
The government's planned post-Brexit trade deal with New Zealand will have a negligible effect on the British economy and could actually make it shrink slightly and leave people worse off, according to government forecasts.
An official strategic outline of the government's plans for the deal unveiled on Wednesday says the effect on GDP (gross domestic product) from the deal will be "close to zero" according to government modelling.
But under one modelled scenario of a more ambitious trade deal, government statisticians think it is possible the UK economy could contract by -0.01 per cent. They also expect the overall welfare of the UK of the population to be slightly lower as a result of the deal.
"A trade agreement with New Zealand could have limited effects on UK GDP in the long run, with the estimated impact on GDP being close to zero under both scenarios compared to the UK not having a trade deal with New Zealand (between 0.00 per cent and 0.01 per cent in scenario 1 and -0.01 per cent and 0.00 per cent in scenario 2)," the document says.
However the trade deal would be slightly more beneficial to New Zealand itself, the government found, noting that "GDP in New Zealand is estimated to see economic growth of 0.14 per cent or 0.35 per cent as a result of this FTA in scenario 1 and 2, respectively".
While the government expects a trade deal to slightly increase productivity and "gross value added", its modelling also warns that not all areas of the country would benefit.
"In Northern Ireland, output may decrease relative to the baseline, reflecting a higher concentration of the agriculture and semi-processed food sectors," the document says.
Exports to New Zealand are expected to increase by between 3.8 per cent and 7.3 per cent under the deal. The government expects there to be a significant increase in imports of New Zealand lamb coming to Britain.
Overall the government projects that a substantial deal will reduce the welfare of the population. The document says: "Headline welfare changes are limited under scenario 1 and are estimated to decrease by 0.01 per cent in scenario 2".
Despite the potential damage to the UK economy from the deal, negotiations were formally launched on Wednesday, alongside talks with Australia.
A similar analysis published by the government today expects a trade agreement with Australia to "increase UK GDP in the long run by around 0.01 per cent or 0.02 per cent", also a negligible amount, particularly over the 15 year long-run period. The UK economy shrank by 20 per cent in April alone on the back of the coronavirus crisis.
The government also admitted in March that its flagship trade deal with Donald Trump's United States would boost UK GDP by 0.16 per cent.
However, the government is keen to sign trade deals with other countries to illustrate the benefits of leaving the European Union's customs union, in which Britain could not sign its own agreements but benefits from collective deals negotiated by the EU.
International Trade Secretary Liz Truss said: "Today's launch of trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand is a historic moment for this county.
"When we left the EU we did so on the promise of trading more with friends and allies across the world. Deals with Australia and New Zealand are a powerful expression of our newfound independence and our intent to build a global Britain. I say to our old friends, Britain is back."
Speaking in the House of commons on Wednesday, Labour's shadow trade secretary Emily Thornberry said: "We cannot divorce this debate from that around the still busy Brexit negotiations.
"The businesses I speak to around the country simply cannot understand why the government is spending so much time and effort trying to negotiate international trade deals of relatively low value when it is yet to secure our continued trade with Europe.
"When the 47 per cent of our trade that depends on Europe is still hanging on the balance then that is where the government's priority should lie."
Speaking at the Commons international trade committee on Wednesday, Nick von Westenholz director of EU exit at the National Farmers' Union said: "There is a huge market of 450m consumers on our doorstep in very close proximity so it will remain hugely important market for us. Absolutely we should look for trade opportunities elsewhere around the world in the years ahead but none of those even collectively will make up for the significant damage agriculture might experience if we have a very hard end of the transition period next year. Absolutely the EU negotiation would be our priority."
MEPs demand UK stays tied to regulations for market access
The European Parliament has threatened to block any Brexit trade deal that doesn't tie Britain into respecting EU standards, as Brussels warned it would not compromise its "fundamental values" for an agreement.
The warning by the EU's legislature throws up a fresh barrier in stalling Brexit trade talks, reducing EU negotiators' room for compromise as the clock ticks down to the end of the year. Member states are also putting pressure on the European Commission's officials to be as tough with Britain as possible.
Kati Piri, the parliament's rapporteur charged with responding to the negotiations, said consent for the final deal would be "conditional" on a strong "level playingfield" condition, as well as an agreement on fishing.
As rapporteur Ms Piri is responsible for coordinating the parliament's view on negotiations across political groups and steering the consensus through parliament as a motion.
On Wednesday she told a plenary meeting in Brussels: "I'm proud to say that parliament is united on a strong text with a clear political message, and that message is simple: yes we want a deal, but we will not simply consent to any deal.
"Our consent is conditional on the UK government's adherence to its own commitments. The UK must respect the political declaration and ensure the full implementation of the withdrawal agreement.
"Let me be very clear: the UK's expectation to keep the benefits and rights of member states without agreeing to any obligations is not realistic.
"It's only logical that if you want to have access to the market of 450 million citizens then this will come with conditions. The UK government made a conscious decision to leave the single market. We respect this, but so should the United Kingdom. Without a level playing-field and fisheries there cannot be a trade agreement."
The Dutch socialist MEP said accused the British government of continuing "to put ideology over the interests of its own people".
Speaking at the same meeting in the parliament European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would do its best to seal an agreement on new ties with Britain by the end of the year, but would not compromise its core values.
Britain's departure from the EU has 'unblocked' Europe from acting in certain policy areas, the bloc's ambassador to the UK has said.
João Vale de Almeida, Europe's first representative to Britain after Brexit, said the UK leaving had also increased support for the union overall.
He argued that while Brexit was a "lose-lose" situation, there was also a "bright side" whereby Britain's previous vetoing of important EU policies was no longer taking place.
The spectacle of the difficult departure has also served as a warning tale for EU citizens to "realise that nothing should be taken for granted", he said.
While inside the union, the UK had a reputation for blocking integration and being a difficult partner.
Separately, polls have suggested a general increase in support for EU membership across most member states throughout the course of negotiations - the opposite of the "domino effect" predicted by some Brexiteers.
"I keep saying and believing that Brexit was a lose-lose situation. This being said, we always have to try and look on the bright side of things and the bright side in terms of Brexit on the 27 is two things," Mr Vale de Almeida told a seminar hosted by the Chatham House think-tank.
"First, is that a number countries and citizens in the union realise that nothing should be taken for granted and you see that in the opinion polls - the support for the EU went up instead of down after Brexit. That's a sign of people being aware how attached they are to the idea of being together. That's one positive effect of Brexit in a way in political terms."
He continued: "The other is that it has unblocked some policy areas where there was some restraint on the side of Britain and that has liberated some impulses and some dynamism within the Euroepan Union.
"I take foreign policy and security, in terms of the defence side of it, what we can do together. There's been a remarkable development in the last few years in the EU's capability to act in this domain.
"The other one is of course everything that has to do with the budgetary dimension ... all in all I remain of the opinion that it was not good for everybody, but there are bright sides of it and we are trying, I guess, to maximise the new possibilities of action inside the union once the UK is out."
While Britain's reputation for blocking EU initiatives was largely justified, since it left other countries have stepped forward to raise objections on certain issues.
For instance the so-called "frugal four" - Sweden, Austria, Denmark and the Netherlands - have blocked sweeping fiscal measures suggested as part of the EU's recovery from coronavirus.
Brexit talks on the future relationship between the UK and EU are currently ongoing, with little progress so far.
Japan has given Britain just six weeks to sign up to a post-Brexit trade deal or face disruption to its imports and exports.
In the latest sign that the "swashbuckling" drive to sign deals with countries around the world is proving less than straightforward, the UK could lose favourable access to Japanese markets it enjoyed as part of EU membership if no agreement is signed.
UK negotiators also face the prospect of being being bounced into a deal on unfavourable terms, as countries like Japan seek to use the reopening of deals to gain further concessions against the UK.
Japanese negotiators this week piled extra pressure onto Boris Johnson by accelerating the timeline for a deal, citing a lack of time in their parliamentary calendar.
"To avoid a gap in January, we must pass this in the autumn session of the Diet [the Japanese parliament]," Hiroshi Matsuura, Tokyo’s chief negotiator, told the Financial Times. "That means we must complete negotiations by the end of July."
Mr Matsuura added that the UK and Japan would have to "limit our ambitions", casting doubt on UK ambitions to improve access for sectors like agricultural produce.
The European Union has a trade deal with Japan but Britain will no longer benefit from it from the start of 2021 when the Brexit transition period ends.
Like some countries with EU trade deals, Japan has declined to simply roll over its existing agreement for the UK after Brexit and has instead reopened talks, potentially extracting further concessions from the UK.
Dr Anna Jerzewska, associate fellow at the UK Trade Policy Observatory told The Independent: "It’s important to note that Japan has been one of the countries that the UK did not manage to negotiate a continuity agreement with – agreements that were supposed to provide continuity of trade with countries that the UK has a trade agreement under EU membership.
"Japan has been quite cautious about agreeing to new trade terms with the UK while the UK-EU negotiations were ongoing. At the same, many Japanese companies have made long-term investments in the UK as the gateway to the EU market – those investments will be heavily impacted by the end of the year when the transition period ends. Even a UK-EU FTA will not allow Japanese companies to maintain current supply chains," she said.
David Sassoli says UK appeared unenthusiastic in recent trade negotiations
Boris Johnson appeared unwilling to compromise in order to secure a trade and security deal with Brussels when he joined EU leaders for a summit last week, one of the three who attended the meeting has told the Guardian.
David Sassoli, the president of the European parliament, punctured a recent outbreak of optimism over a potential deal by warning that the EU had been left concerned at the end of a video conference call by the lack of “enthusiasm” to find common ground on the most contentious issues.
After the discussions last Monday, the British prime minister insisted he could see no reason why an agreement could not be secured with Brussels by the end of July following intensified talks.
In a joint statement, Johnson, Sassoli and the presidents of the European commission and council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, had said “new momentum was required”.
But in an interview with the Guardian, Sassoli warned that he had not been imbued with confidence the prime minister was ready to do what was necessary to secure agreement before the end of the transition period on 31 December.
“Together, we are very worried because we don’t see great enthusiasm from the British authorities and we don’t see a strong will to get to an agreement that satisfies all parties,” he said.
“Obviously as an agreement, it has to satisfy both parties that it cannot advantage one over the other. And this puts us in a situation in which at the moment we are frankly a little bit worried.”
The two sides are stuck on issues of access to British waters for European fishermen and dispute resolution in a future deal, as well as the so-called level playing field provisions, where the EU has been demanding common environmental, labour and social standards.
On Wednesday, Barnier reiterated that he was willing to work on “clever compromises” in the new rounds of talks scheduled in July and August, mentioning “regulatory equivalence” as an alternative to the UK incorporating EU state aid law into domestic legislation.
Sassoli said Barnier had been given the “maximum margin” of flexibility by the member states to find a compromise, but that it “takes two to tango”. “There cannot be one party that prevails,” Sassoli said.
“Basically, the fact that they don’t really want to build upon the political declaration, this really does disturb us greatly, because that has to be the basis for everything for the whole negotiation,” Sassoli said, in reference to the 27-page document agreed last year on the scope of a future deal.
“We reached an agreement, and it now must be respected. This really is something which concerns us at the moment.”
The UK has taken a minimalist approach to the agreement in the political declaration to incorporate level playing field provisions in a treaty ensuring neither side is able to undercut the other by downgrading their standards. The UK negotiator, David Frost, has rejected any deal that sets up EU law as the common standard to meet.
Sassoli said that when the EU leaders emphasised during the meeting the need for a deal that would give the European fishing fleet fair access to UK waters, he was also concerned by the prime minister’s reply.
“The response that was given by the prime minister was that fishermen voted for Brexit. We want to respect their point of view, of course, but we also believe that we’re talking here about a very important resource both for the UK and for Europe, and we’re talking about the sea, so we think we can come to a common agreement on this.”
The prime minister has said he will not extend the transition period, with the deadline for an agreement on extra time passing next week.
Sassoli said he had personally hoped that an extension would be sought given the difficulties in negotiating the terms of the future relationship during the coronavirus pandemic. Both Barnier and Frost have been infected with the virus during the crisis.
Sassoli, an Italian MEP since 2009, who was elected the president of the parliament last year, said he feared Downing Street was seeking to rush the EU into decisions by shortening the timeframe for talks.
He said: “This [extension] is something that I actually hoped would happen for technical reasons, because we know that covid has cost us a lot of time in negotiation, so it could have been a very good opportunity. If this really is our goal, if we want an agreement and it would have given us a few more weeks …
“I do believe that it is a way to put the European Union in a difficult position, an unpleasant position, a position in which no one is is respecting the goodwill which was initially shown to go towards agreement.”
