TRADE: While negotiations on the post-Brexit deal still drag, the two leaders must also discuss British isolation due to coronavirus
New attempt to find a way out of Brexit. As the fateful date of December 31st draws closer, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to each other again on Monday evening as negotiations still stalled.
The pandemic situation has also been raised, according to this source, as the United Kingdom faces the spread of a variant of the coronavirus, which has forced many countries to suspend their links with it. The European Union should attempt Tuesday to harmonize the measures put in place by its member states to isolate the United Kingdom during a meeting of the ambassadors of the Twenty-Seven Tuesday afternoon.
PCR tests for travellers?
The aim is to allow nationals of member states currently in the UK, Britons residing in EU countries and truck drivers stranded in the UK to return to the EU on condition of have previously undergone a PCR test and be negative, according to a European diplomat. The Commission was to present a recommendation to this effect and Member States will have to vote on these “targeted returns” during the meeting.
Threatened with shortages, the United Kingdom is striving on Tuesday to find a way out of the crisis, in particular with France, to allow a resumption of cross-Channel goods traffic.
Fishing, a sticking point
On the negotiations to try to find a post-Brexit agreement, the blockage between the two camps persists, in particular on the sensitive question of fishing , less than ten days of the final rupture between London and the EU.
The impasse in the talks, which once again raises the specter of a “no deal”, must also be mentioned during the meeting of ambassadors by the EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, who will then engage in the same exercise with the MEPs who are following this dossier.
A possible agreement must theoretically be ratified by the European Parliament for it to enter into force on January 1, but MEPs consider that it is now too late. Boris Johnson repeated Monday evening that the conditions for a “no deal” “would be more than satisfactory for the United Kingdom”.
