BRUSSELS: Weary EU officials prepared for another round of urgent Brexit negotiations on Tuesday, with time running out and some European capitals beginning to doubt that London even wants a trade deal.

“But please, dear friends in London: Stop the games. Time is running out,” Germany’s European affairs minister Michael Roth warned as he met colleagues in Brussels ahead of a summit of EU leaders on Thursday.

Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier will be in London on Wednesday for informal talks with his UK opposite number David Frost on slow-moving efforts to agree a trade deal – full negotiations resume next week.

EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic will meet his British counterpart Michel Gove in Brussels on Monday, just ahead of Brussels’ end-of-the-month deadline for London to drop a bill designed to rewrite the deal.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that he is ready to walk away from the trade talks if there’s no progress by mid-October, and Brussels argues a deal must be done by then if it is to be implemented this year.

But – after Johnson launched British legislation to overwrite parts of the withdrawal treaty in open defiance of international law – some EU capitals think he is trying to sabotage the talks.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, whose country has more to lose than most if talks break down, said the mood at the foreign ministers’ meeting was pessimistic.

“What has been concerning over the last couple of days for me,” he said, “from speaking to other EU foreign ministers, is that there’s a growing sense that perhaps the UK doesn’t want to deal. And that this is more about managing the blame game as the negotiations fail.

“And I have reassured them very clearly that, in my view, that is not the case.”

Britain left the European Union on Jan 31, and will leave the bloc’s single market and customs union at the end of the year. Experts fear economic chaos if no new trade deal can be agreed by then.

But Johnson’s decision to push an Internal Markets Bill in his own parliament that his own government admits would break international law by overwriting the withdrawal treaty has infuriated EU capitals.

Brussels intends to launch legal action against the measure, but will continue to negotiate a possible trade treaty in parallel to this in the weeks to come as the bill passes through the Commons and House of Lords.

“The so-called Internal Market Bill worries us extremely, because it violates the guiding principles of the withdrawal agreement, and this is totally unacceptable for us,” Roth said.

Sefcovic said he would meet Gove as joint chair of the EU-UK Joint Coordination Committee overseeing the divorce agreement, which Johnson signed last year and hailed as an “oven-ready” deal to get Britain out of Europe.

However, he warned, “we will not be renegotiating, but we are dedicated to its full and timely implementation – nothing more and nothing less.”

France’s minister for European Affairs, Clement Beaune, said Paris still hopes there will be a trade deal to head off the danger of a breakdown in trade ties on Jan 1, but that Europe would not compromise on the treaty.

“We are not going to ratify an agreement on the future relationship if there are knife wounds all over the previous chapter,” he said, referring to a withdrawal deal that Brussels and Dublin see as vital to maintaining an open border in Ireland.

Johnson has argued that his bill will instead provide a “safety net” against what he has claimed are EU threats to impose tariffs on UK internal trade and even stop food going from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland.

The EU leaders will receive a “point of information” on progress in the trade talks at their summit on Thursday, but for the moment have left the protracted wranglings in the hands of their negotiator, Barnier.

The two sides are still divided on rules for a “level-playing field” of fair competition between companies, on state aid or subsidies for EU and UK firms and on access for EU boats to British fishing waters. – AFP

                <span class="byline"> By  </span>
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            Associated Press

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                    Tuesday, September 22, 2020

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                  BRUSSELS (AP) - The European Union is postponing a leaders’ summit because the EU Council president is going into a COVID-19 quarantine.
















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   A key European Union summit planned for later this week has been postponed after European Council President Charles Michel went into quarantine.</p> <p>The president’s spokesman Barend Leyts tweeted that Michel had gone into isolation after a security officer, with whom he was in close contact early last week, tested positive for COVID-19.
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   “The President is tested regularly and tested negative yesterday,” Leyts said in the tweet, adding, “Respecting Belgian rules, he has gone into quarantine as of today.”
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   The meeting of EU leaders was scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday but has now been postponed until Oct. 1 and 2.</p> <p>Among the issues due to be discussed at the gathering in Brussels were relations with Turkey and progress in the Brexit talks, with the next formal round set to take place between Sept. 28 and Oct. 2.</p> <p>On Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey and Greece were ready to resume exploratory talks amid a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/showdown-in-the-mediterranean-11599780440" target="_blank" class="icon none" rel="noopener noreferrer">dispute over territorial waters</a> in the eastern Mediterranean, following a scheduled videoconference call with Michel and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.</p> <p>Cyprus’ veto of EU sanctions against Belarus was also on the agenda for the now postponed summit. EU foreign ministers failed to agree sanctions against Belarusian officials on Monday after Cyprus blocked the plan.


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The European Union has postponed its summit for a week because EU Council President Charles Michel has gone into quarantine after a close collaborator was diagnosed with Covid-19.

Spokesman Barend Leyts said Mr Michel “today learned that a security officer, with whom he was in close contact early last week, tested positive for Covid”.

Mr Leyts said the European Council chief is “respecting Belgian rules” and “has gone into quarantine as of today”.

The summit, originally set for Thursday and Friday, aims to address issues as wide-ranging as Brexit negotiations, climate change and tensions between Greece and Turkey over energy rights.

Preparations for the meeting were in full swing when Mr Michel made the sudden announcement. He postponed the summit by a week, to October 1-2.

Live summits with the leaders of EU nations coming to Brussels only resumed over the summer. Throughout the spring, they met through video conferences while staying in their own capitals.

As the chief of the European Council, Mr Michel is the host to the regular summits of EU leaders. In July, he forced the 27 leaders to stay for four days in Brussels to broker an 1.85 trillion-euro agreement on a pandemic recovery fund and long-term EU budget.

The postponement is a setback to the EU leaders’ hope for a return to normality.

Mr Michel, who tested negative for the virus on Monday, did not want to risk bringing the leaders together in one room, however big, for fear of further exposure.

The decision to delay took place against a backdrop of irritation when government officials do not take the same care with precautionary measures as the general public.

Last month, the chief EU trade negotiator and commissioner Phil Hogan had to resign when he admitted flouting some measures during a summer stay in his native Ireland.

Almost 150,000 people in the European Union have died in the pandemic, which also has thrown the bloc into the worst economic crisis of its history.

The EU summit has been postponed for a week because European Council President Charles Michel has gone into quarantine.

Spokesman Barend Leyts said on Tuesday that Michel ‘today learned that a security officer, with whom he was in close contact early last week, tested positive for COVID’.

Leyts said that the European Council chief is ‘respecting Belgian rules’ and ‘he has gone into quarantine as of today’.

The EU summit has been postponed for a week because Council President Charles Michel (pictured) has gone into quarantine

The summit set for Thursday and Friday was to address a number of issues, including the important next stages of the Brexit negotiations.

Climate change and the tensions between Greece and Turkey over energy rights were also on the agenda for the summit.

Preparations for the meeting were already in full swing when Michel made the sudden announcement. 

He postponed the summit by one week, to October 1-2.

Preparations for the meeting were already in full swing (pictured) when Michel made the sudden announcement

Michel made headlines earlier this month when he criticised Boris Johnson’s plans to override the Brexit divorce deal.

He said in a tweet: ‘The Withdrawal agreement was concluded and ratified by both sides, it has to be applied in full.

‘Breaking international law is not acceptable and does not create the confidence we need to build our future relationship.’ 

He made headlines earlier this month when he insisted breaking international law was ‘not acceptable’ in relation to the withdrawal agreement

Live summits with the leaders of EU nations coming to Brussels only resumed over the summer.

Throughout the spring, they met through video conferences while staying in their own capitals.

The postponement is a setback to the EU leaders’ hope for a return to normalcy.