Northern Irish businesses are separately told there will be 30m customs declarations a year on GB-NI trade from Jan 1. Michel Barnier will tell ambassadors some progress has been made in the talks. [ Ссылка ] #eudebates #debates #Barnier #BREXIT #negotiations
Michel Barnier to call for more Brexit trade talks
Michel Barnier will tell EU ambassadors on Wednesday that more Brexit negotiations are needed before Brussels and Britain can agree a free trade deal.
The EU’s chief negotiator is expected to brief senior diplomats of the 27 remaining member states that no conclusive breakthroughs have been made in the rebooted talks but some progress has been made.
The UK and EU are still divided over the three major issues of fishing, the level playing field guarantees and the deal’s enforcement after almost two weeks of daily intensified talks.
Fisheries continues to be a major obstacle to a deal, the two sides claimed, after reports that an agreement was in the offing.
Downing Street said there remained “significant gaps” on the “most difficult areas” in the talks, meaning more negotiations are necessary.
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, said that some progress had been made over the level playing field guarantees but a deal was still far off.
“It’s far from being concluded yet,” Mr Coveney said in Dublin. He added that a deal could be reached but time could run out.
Both sides want to agree a trade deal by mid-November so there is enough time to ratify the agreement before the end of the transition period at the end of the year. It is possible that Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, could intervene to find a political solution to the impasse.
If the deal is not finalised by January 1, the UK will leave in a no deal exit, which will mean WTO terms with tariffs and quotas.
Northern Ireland leaves the EU’s Customs Union with the rest of the UK on January 1 but it will continue to follow EU customs rules at its ports.
This dual status prevents the need for a hard border on the island of Ireland but means goods coming from Great Britain need export declarations.
Government adviser Frank Dunsmuir told Northern Irish businesses a new digital Trader Support Service could handle the surge in declarations.
Aodhán Connolly, the director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium, said the huge amount of declaration was just “one part of the jigsaw” from January.
VAT, food safety and animal health checks and other frictions further complicated the situation, he said.
“There is a very short time for the UK Government and the EU to come up with ways to remove these costly frictions if retailers are going to be able to give Northern Ireland households the affordability and choice that they desperately need,” he said.
A government spokesperson said, “We have launched a new £200 million free-to-use Trader Support Service that will complete digital processes on behalf of businesses importing goods into Northern Ireland. Businesses of all sizes will benefit.”
Businesses in Great Britain are considering pulling out of Northern Ireland because of the Brexit protocol, the Northern Irish agriculture minister warned.
Tens of thousands of pounds could be added to the cost of a lorry load of supermarket goods due to the measure designed to keep the country in line with EU rules, Edwin Poots said.
Britain missed an EU deadline to respond to European Commission legal action over the Internal Market Bill on Saturday.
The commission confirmed on Tuesday that the October 31 deadline for a response had lapsed and warned the UK the issue must be “resolved”.
It sent the UK a “letter of formal notification” last month after ministers rejected a demand to scrap clauses from the UK Internal Market Bill that override key elements of the Withdrawal Agreement related to Northern Ireland.
Downing Street admitted it had failed to reply and expressed its desire to work through the Joint Committee on the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement to solve the dispute.
The Government has argued the Bill – which gives ministers the power to override provisions in the Brexit divorce agreement relating to Northern Ireland – is necessary to protect the peace process if there is no agreement on a post-Brexit free trade agreement.
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