LONDON/DUBLIN (Reuters) – British and European Union negotiators will meet in Brussels on Sunday in a last-ditch attempt to strike a post-Brexit trade deal before a transition agreement ends on Dec. 31.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke on Saturday and instructed their teams to resume talks after they were paused on Friday.

In a joint statement after their call, Johnson and von der Leyen said that no agreement was feasible if disagreements on the three thorny issues of governance, fisheries and competition rules, known as the level playing field, were not resolved.

“This is the final throw of the dice,” a British source close to the negotiations said.

EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said the talks on Sunday with his British counterpart David Frost would show whether a new trade deal could be struck.

A majority of Johnson’s ministers were willing to back him if he decides a deal is not in Britain’s interests, the Times newspaper reported, saying 13 cabinet ministers – including eight who opposed Brexit – had confirmed they would do so.

British farming minister George Eustice backed that up in an interview on Sky News on Sunday, saying the country had done a huge amount of preparation for a no-deal and was ready to go through with such a scenario.

“We’ll continue to work on these negotiations until there’s no point in doing so any further,” said Eustice.

But Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, a key figure in Brexit talks in recent years, said it was not credible for the British government to suggest they could manage a no-deal.

Striking a more optimistic note, Coveney said it was his “very strong view” that a deal could be done. “We are more likely to get a deal than not,” Coveney told Ireland’s Sunday Independent newspaper.

Negotiations were paused on Friday after hopes of a deal earlier in the week evaporated. The British team said the EU had made demands incompatible with its sovereignty and warned that the talks could end without an agreement.

Coveney denied the EU had hardened its stance.

If they fail to reach a deal, a five-year Brexit divorce will end messily just as Britain and its former EU partners grapple with the economic cost of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Experts have warned that a no-deal scenario would cause huge long-term disruption to the British economy.

Doha has invested heavily in both markets

The trade volume between Qatar and the European Union reached $7bn in the first nine months of 2020, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. 

Qatar Chamber has also announced that although trade between the United Kingdom and Qatar has increased by 22% over the past two years, it has been dropping in recent months, with its value reaching $2.5bn at the end of the third quarter of 2020.

Read also: Qatar and Turkey ink 10 new deals in latest round of ‘Strategic Dialogue’ meetings

Trade between Qatar and European Union member states makes up 12.3% of Qatar’s total global trade, that’s according to minister Ali bin Ahmed Al Kuwari, who highlighted the growing business ties between Qatar and Europe during a call with EU and World Trade Organisation representatives. 

Qatar has signed 14 commercial, economic, and technical cooperation agreements, as well as 12 “Reciprocal Promotion and Protection of Mutual Investments” agreements with various EU member nations in addition to having eight joint committees on trade and commerce. 

Aside from trade, Doha’s investments in the EU stand at $31bn, while there are 2,129 fully or partial EU owned companies operating in Qatar.

Qatari investments in the UK, which is on its way out of the European Union, currently stand at $47bn. 

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LONDON: Britain and the European Union will reconvene post-Brexit trade negotiations in Brussels on Sunday after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen held inconclusive talks, as time runs short to seal a deal.

The pair held the crunch on Saturday afternoon phone call, which reportedly lasted around an hour, with pressure intensifying to finalise an agreement ahead of the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec 31.

The high-level political intervention followed UK and European Union envoys pausing the last-ditch talks late on Friday.

Both sides continue to have “significant differences” on several critical issues that have long stalled negotiations, a joint statement said.

“Whilst recognising the seriousness of these differences, we agreed that a further effort should be undertaken by our negotiating teams to assess whether they can be resolved,” Johnson and von der Leyen said in a statement following their conversation.

“We are therefore instructing our chief negotiators to reconvene tomorrow in Brussels. We will speak again on Monday evening.” A deal is seen as essential to avoid deep trade disruption on both sides — but especially in Britain — to economies already damaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

Johnson and von der Leyen last spoke on Nov 7, but a month later Britain and the bloc remain divided over so-called level playing field provisions, governance and fisheries. “Both sides underlined that no agreement is feasible if these issues are not resolved,” Saturday’s joint statement added.

Britain formally left the EU in January, nearly four years after a referendum on membership that divided the nation.

But it has remained bound by most of its rules until the end of the year, as the two sides try to agree the exact nature of their future relationship.

Without a deal, the bulk of cross-Channel trade will revert to World Trade Organization terms, an unwanted return to tariffs and quotas after almost five decades of deepening economic and political integration.

Talks through this year have finalised most aspects of an agreement, with Britain set to leave the EU single market and customs union, but the most thorny issues have remain unresolved.

“We will see if there is a way forward,” EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said. “Work continues tomorrow.” Johnson has insisted Britain will “prosper mightily” whatever the outcome of the talks, but he will face severe political and economic fallout if he cannot seal a deal.

“If we fail to get an agreement with the European Union, this will be a serious failure of statecraft,” Conservative lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Lowy Institute in an interview published on Saturday.

European capitals have remained remarkably united behind Barnier through the fraught Brexit process, but some internal fractures have now begun to surface.

France on Friday threatened to veto any deal that fails short of their demands on ensuring fair trade and access to UK fishing waters.

Meanwhile a European diplomat said that Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark share Paris’s concerns that the EU side could give too much ground on rules to maintain competition.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2020

The EU and Britain’s chief Brexit negotiators will make a last-ditch bid to break months of deadlock on Sunday, as trade talks limp back to Brussels, surviving on borrowed time.

Michel Barnier and his UK counterpart David Frost will once again try to find common ground on the critical issues that have split both sides since talks began in March.

The extra time came after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen held an emergency phone call on Saturday.

Both sides agreed that “significant differences” remained, but that talks should continue — at least until their next scheduled call on Monday.

“We are therefore instructing our chief negotiators to reconvene tomorrow in Brussels. We will speak again on Monday evening.”

The high-level intervention came after Barnier and Frost broke off talks late Friday after day and night negotiations over seven days in London failed to reach a deal.

While much has been agreed, the sides cannot close out the thorniest debates over fishing rights, fair trade rules and an enforcement mechanism to govern any deal.

• ‘Anything is possible’ –

Britain formally left the EU in January, nearly four years after a referendum on membership that divided the nation.

But it is bound to the EU’s tariff-free single market until the end of the year — by which time the two sides must try to agree on the exact nature of their future relationship.

“Anything is possible. The three open issues are linked by Britain’s intent to keep sovereignty a priority, and Europe‘s fear of UK freeloading,” a source with close knowledge of the talks told AFP.

Without a deal, the bulk of cross-Channel trade will revert to World Trade Organization terms, a return to tariffs and quotas after almost five decades of close economic and political integration.

Tolga Akmen, AFP

“We will see if there is a way forward,” EU chief negotiator Barnier said Saturday. “Work continues tomorrow.”

Johnson has insisted Britain will “prosper mightily” whatever the outcome of the talks, but he will face severe political and economic fallout if he cannot seal a deal.

“If we fail to get an agreement with the European Union, this will be a serious failure of statecraft,” Conservative lawmaker Tom Tugendhat, chair of parliament’s foreign affairs committee, told the Lowy Institute in an interview published Saturday.

European capitals have remained remarkably united behind Barnier through the fraught Brexit process, but some internal fractures have now begun to surface.

France on Friday threatened to veto any deal that fails short of their demands on ensuring fair trade and access to UK fishing waters.

Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark share Paris’s concerns that the EU side could give too much ground on rules to maintain competition.

There are just days left to finalise a deal, with an EU leaders’ summit on Thursday looming large.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, whose country could be most affected among EU states by any no-deal scenario, welcomed the continuation of discussions.

“An agreement is in everyone’s best interests. Every effort should be made to reach a deal,” he tweeted.

• ‘Owe it to citizens’ –

The German government, which holds the rotating EU presidency, also welcomed the reprieve.

German MEP Manfred Weber, the head of the European Parliament’s conservative EPP group, saying it was “now or never” for a deal.

“Boris Johnson needs to make a choice between the ideology of Brexit and the realism of people’s daily lives,” he said on Twitter.

“In the middle of the Covid crisis we owe it to our citizens and businesses to find an agreement.”

ISLAMABAD: The Parliamentary Leader of the Pakistan People’s Party in the Senate, Senator Sherry Rehman, has said the European Union’s decision to retain its ban on PIA in its member countries is another blow to our national airline which is a clear vote of no confidence in two years of gross mismanagement and neglect by the PTI government.

“It is rather shocking that despite the previous suspension, conditions laid down in ART 205(c)(2) of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) regulations were not met by CAA and it appears that now the only way the ban can be lifted is by the Pakistan’s aviation regulatory body to clear a new safety audit,” she said in a statement on Saturday.

Sherry said what is questionable is the government’s inaction and flat refusal to take responsibility for landing an already troubled airline in such international disgrace. “Nobody seems to be take responsibility for this combination of criminal negligence and indifference to the squandering of our national assets,” she questioned.

She said it’s not only EASA but the US and the UK authorities who have also banned PIA. The national airline is facing a loss of millions along with being disgraced internationally.

The Senator said it has lost its coveted international routes and clearances, while a coterie of cannibalising corporate raiders look to be actively colluding to shut the airline down.

Senator Sherry Rehman said that the government should take this EU ban as a reminder that despite being banned internationally, PIA is still flying domestically, and questions will be asked about what it is doing to guarantee the safety of the lives of domestic passengers who have little option but to fly PIA.

Talking about the fake license issue, the PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate, said the Aviation Minister had claimed that there were 262 fake licenses but recently the Secretary Aviation told IHC that only 28 licenses were fraudulent.

She said we are still facing the aftermath of such reckless statements, but no one is made answerable in Madina ki Riasat. “In any other government many heads would have rolled, but here there is total indifference to public safety, parliamentary caution or moral obligation to be answerable to the people,” she said.

Sherry Rehman said the entire ‘Licencegate’ issue tells us that the public is on its own, that questions in Parliament mean nothing, or beget only tirades, and that the revival of PIA is part of the many false promises made to Pakistan by ‘Tabahi Sarkar’.

She said in any other country or government, those responsible would have been taken to task and would not be allowed to cover up their egregious misdemeanours. “We still must insist on an investigation as to why EASA conditions were not met,” she said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the European Union‘s top official are set to discuss the state of play of post-Brexit trade discussions later Saturday after negotiators paused talks in light of their inability to bridge an array of differences.

With the discussions stuck over the same issues for months, Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the EU’s executive European Commission, will see if there is a route to a deal.

With the U.K.’s post-Brexit transition period due to conclude at the end of the year, the discussions are clearly facing a crunch point, not least because of the necessary approvals required from both sides. Without an agreement in place, tariffs will end up being imposed on traded goods at the start of 2021.

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