Patrick Daly, PA Political Correspondent

Minister for State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne has said he was not expecting a telephone conversation between UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his European Commission counterpart to result in a breakthrough in the post-Brexit trade talks.

Mr Johnson was due to speak to Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to “take stock” of the deadlocked trade talk negotiations today.

Briefings between the two leaders are seen as key moments in the cross-Channel bartering, with their conversation last month seeing discussions “intensified” before a fallout after the European Council meeting on October 15th briefly derailed the negotiations.

But Mr Byrne said he doubted the conversation between Mr Johnson and Ms von der Leyen would lead to white smoke on agreeing a deal, with “big issues” still remaining in talks that he described as having been “difficult”.

“I personally don’t expect that there would be major progress today but at the same time I think it is very good that the top two are talking – I think that’s really positive, but I don’t think we would expect ‘a moment’ at this particular point,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“At the moment there is a huge range of issues that need to be discussed at a technical level and they need to continue, I hope.

“I hope that today’s discussion between Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson will progress that further.”

Update to the agenda of President @vonderleyen for Saturday 7 November afternoon:

➡️ phone call with UK Prime Minister @BorisJohnson on the state-of-play of the ???? negotiations

— Eric Mamer (@MamerEric) November 6, 2020

UK chief negotiator Lord Frost was in the Belgian capital to speak face-to-face with his European Union counterpart Michel Barnier earlier this week.

Meetings between the pair are due to continue next week in London after both agreed there continued to be gaps in the UK and the bloc’s positions as the deadline for doing a deal edges closer.

Ticking clock

After talks finished on Wednesday, Mr Barnier briefed MEPs and EU diplomats that “very serious divergences” remained, with only 54 days left until the end of the transition period.

He said the main stumbling blocks continued to be around the “level playing field” aimed at preventing unfair competition on areas including state subsidies, fisheries policy and the governance of any deal.

Lord Frost previously said progress had been made during two weeks of intensive talks but “wide divergences remain on some core issues”.

More discussions are planned between Brussels and London ahead of the UK’s scheduled exit from the EU at the end of the year.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are set to speak by telephone Saturday to assess the state of post-Brexit trade talks between the U.K. and the European Union.

A spokesman at Johnson’s Downing Street office said Friday that the prime minister’s conversation with the leader of the EU’s executive arm would allow the two to “take stock” of the negotiations less than two months before a transition period designed to smooth Britain’s departure from the EU ends.

Though the U.K. left the EU on January 31, it remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union until the end of this year.

A trade deal would ensure there are no tariffs and quotas on trade in goods between the two sides, but there would still be technical costs, partly associated with customs checks and non-tariff barriers on services.

Johnson said he hoped a deal could be concluded in the next seven to 10 days.

“There’s a deal there to be done but if not, the country is very well prepared,” he told British broadcaster Sky News on Friday.

Progress on reaching even a bare-bones agreement has been slow. The two sides are far apart on key issues, such as fishing rights and business regulations.

Following the conclusion of the latest round of talks in Brussels on Wednesday, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said “very serious divergences” remained. Barnier and his British counterpart, David Frost, have agreed to meet again next week.

The outcome of the U.S. presidential election, though not connected directly, could have a bearing on the discussions. President Donald Trump was a self-proclaimed supporter of Brexit and said he wanted to conclude a trade deal with the U.K. following reelection. Should he lose, many analysts said it would raise the pressure on London to secure a trade deal with the EU.

Trump’s Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, has voiced worries about the impact of Brexit on the peace process on the island of Ireland. Biden said he would seek to rebuild U.S. ties with the EU, were he to become president.

Earlier, Britain’s spending watchdog warned that there is likely to be “significant disruption” to trade with the European Union at the start of next year even if a trade deal between the two sides is agreed in time.

The National Audit Office, which assesses government spending, noted that crucial IT systems and transit areas for trucks are not yet ready to deal with the upcoming change in the economic relationship between the U.K. and the EU.

It did find some progress in the implementation of the changes required to systems, infrastructure and resources even though they have been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“There is likely to be significant disruption at the border from January 1 as many traders and third parties will not be ready for new EU controls,” the National Audit Office said in its latest assessment of border preparations.

According to the government’s latest “reasonable worst-case planning assumptions,” between 40% and 70% of trucks transiting between the EU and the U.K. may not be ready for the new border controls come Jan. 1. It has also warned of queues of up to 7,000 trucks around the main sea crossings in southeast England.

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    <figure class="">&#13;
        <a href="/data/cache/noticias/78782/0x0/04-11-canciller-sola.jpg" class="gallery" title="Argentine minister Solá at the German embassy in Buenos Aires with EU representatives " rel="nofollow"> </a>&#13;
        <span>Argentine minister Solá at the German embassy in Buenos Aires with EU representatives </span>        </figure>


    Argentina held a meeting with the European Union ambassador and 21 of 27 EU members' representatives in Buenos Aires and formally called for an end of the support for UK Falklands' sovereignty recognition in the ongoing Brexit negotiations between Brussels and London.

    The meeting was held this week at the German embassy (Berlin holds the European Council presidency) and besides Falklands the agenda included the Covid 19 pandemic and EU support through the Team <a class="wpil_keyword_link " href="https://europeantimes.news/category/europe/"  title="Europe" data-wpil-keyword-link="linked">Europe</a>,  Argentina's economic recovery plans and the future of the stalled Mercosur/EU free trade agreement. Other issues referred to human rights, climate change and the US elections.

It was according to the local media, foreign minister Felipe Solá’s first attendance to a meeting with so many diplomats, since the lockdown started last March.

On the Falklands issue, Solá was specifically interested in emphasizing the consequences for the Islands of UK’s exit of the European Union, given the sovereignty dispute, and underlined Argentina does not want exports from the Islands to have zero tariff and zero quota access to the European market.

Solá also talked about the Mercosur/EU trade deal, which is pending confirmation from all the different countries parliaments and pointed out that the group is currently holding talks with some eleven countries, at different degree of advance, “but it is not possible to advance at the same time and at the same speed with all parties”, and in a world of uncertainty and anti integration tendencies, the best approach is to concentrate on relations with those blocks with which “we share so many values, such the case of the EU and Mercosur”.

Mentioned among the shared values were multilateralism, defense of human rights, climate change and same gender issues. As to the US elections, EU representatives expressed how complicated the system was and Solá added that the political scenario has shown a polarized public opinion, with a clear “social gap”, as in most Western countries, in reference to the polarization exposed by the followers of president Donald Trump and the Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

Solá attended with several members of his cabinet and was hosted by German ambassador Ulrich Sante and the EU representative Aude Maio-Coliche.

Brussels: EU member states on Friday extended for another year a sanctions framework against Turkey allowing visa bans and asset freezes against individuals involved in contested gas exploration in the Mediterranean.
The move comes as tensions remain high between the European Union and Turkey.

Ankara has ordered a gas exploration vessel into east Mediterranean waters claimed by Cyprus and Greece, both of which are calling for more sanctions to be imposed.

The EU sanctions framework was extended to November 12, 2021, the European Council said in a statement.

It prolongs an EU decision, reached in October 2019, under which two senior officials of the state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation were in February this year subjected to sanctions.