Brexit talks stalled over fishing rights

BRUSSELS: Negotiations for a post-Brexit trade deal were deadlocked and threatened by failure on Sunday, as both sides dug in their heels over access to the UK’s rich fishing waters. The European Parliament had fixed Sunday as the last moment it could accept a text of any accord if MEPs are to ratify it before Britain leaves the EU single market in two weeks.

But both sides of the intense negotiations in Brussels now expect the talks to blow past what is only the latest in a series of missed deadlines, and both insist that the other must back down over fish.

Without a deal, Britain’s participation in the European project would end with a new cross-Channel tariff barrier to sharpen the shock of unravelling a half-century of ever deeper political and economic partnership.


“We're continuing to try every possible path to an agreement, but without a substantial shift from the (European) Commission we will be leaving on WTO terms on 31 December,” a British government source said.

But a European diplomat had told AFP that Brussels had made its best offer and it was down now to British PM Boris Johnson — now distracted by a worsening coronavirus crisis at home — to decide whether he wants a deal.

“It could well continue over Christmas, now the UK is still making up its mind whether it is willing to pay the price for unprecedented access to the internal market,” he said

“The EU has been clear this weekend that it is willing to compromise on fish. But it will bail at putting EU fishermen structurally out of business. The narrow path to a deal has now become a single goat track, about to peter out.”