EU-UK trade talks floundering over fish as cutoff day nears

 Deep into a crucial weekend of negotiations, a breakthrough on fishing rights remained elusive for European Union and Britain, leaving both without a tre agreement that would dull edge of a chaotic, costly ecomic break on New Year's Day.

With hundreds of thousands of jobs at stake throughout ecomy, tiny sector of fisheries continued to drive a wedge between 27-nation bloc and U.K., highlighting animosity that drove m to a Brexit divorce over past four years. Britain left bloc in January but a 11-month ecomic transition period ends on Dec. 31.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office said Sunday that EU is “continuing to make demands that are incompatible with our independence. We cant accept a deal that doesn’t leave us in control of our own laws or waters."

almost mythical sense of Britain's rights to rule its waves was an essential part of what drove Brexiteers to victory in 2016 referendum. Johnson is seeking to make sure that as much as possible of shared British waters are w returned to U.K. vessels only.

EU has always maintained that those waters have been shared for deces, if t centuries, and insists if too many fishing rights are taken away, it will punish Britain by imposing hefty import fees to mainland market, which is essential to U.K. seafood industry.

stalemate has left overall talks inconclusive with businesses on both sides clamoring for a deal that would save tens of billions in costs. Johnson, though, could t be budged.

“We need to get any deal right and based on terms which respect what British people voted for," his office said.

EU parliament needs to approve any deal before end of year and h set a Sunday night deline so it could have a cursory vetting of deal and approve it before New Year's Day. Negotiators, however, seemed little impressed by yet ar deline when so many h alrey been missed during four-year departure process.

One official from an EU coastal nation said EU was refusing to yield more than a quarter of fishing quotas bloc stands to lose w that Britain is regaining full control of its waters due to Brexit.

Britain is also stefast that a 3-year transition period would be long eugh for EU fishermen to apt to new rules, while EU wants at least six years.

official spoke on condition of anymity because talks were still ongoing.

A failure to reach a post-Brexit deal would le to more chaos on Britain’s borders with EU at start of 2021, when new tariffs would d to or impediments to tre enacted by both sides.

talks have bogged down on two main issues over past days — EU’s access to U.K. fishing waters and assurances of fair competition between businesses.

A tre deal would ensure re are tariffs and quotas on tre in goods between two sides, but re would still be technical costs, partly associated with customs checks and n-tariff barriers on services.

While both sides would suffer ecomically from a failure to secure a tre deal, most ecomists think British ecomy would take a greater hit, at least in near-term, as it is relatively more reliant on tre with EU than vice versa.

(IM CREDITS:PTI)