The EU and the UK will resume talks today about securing a free trade deal after Brexit despite the UK passing its own “deadline” for securing an agreement last night (December 13).
Both sides had agreed last week that they would conduct intensive talks up to yesterday, but a joint statement by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson indicated that talks will continue.
In yesterday’s statement, the two leaders said:
“We had a constructive and useful phone call this morning. We discussed the major unresolved topics. Our negotiating teams have been working day and night over recent days.
Despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations, despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over, we think it is responsible at this point to go the extra mile.
“We have accordingly mandated our negotiators to continue the talks and to see whether an agreement can, even at this late stage, be reached,” the statement added.
WTO trading terms
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that the UK can come out in a “wonderful” situation if it is forced to trade under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms.
Trading under WTO terms would mean trade tariffs in both directions between the UK and the EU.
Johnson said:
It is looking very, very likely that we will have to go for a solution that I think would be wonderful for the UK, and we’d be able to do exactly what we want from January 1.
“It obviously would be different from what we’d set out to achieve but I have no doubt this country can get ready and, as I say, come out on World Trade terms.”
