UK says Brexit trade talks with EU are in their 'last week'

 Britain’s foreign minister said Sunday re is only about a week left for U.K. and European Union to strike a post-Brexit tre deal, with fishing rights major obstacle to an agreement.

As talks continued between two sides in London, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said “I think we are into last week or so of substantive negotiations.”

U.K. left EU early this year, but remained part of 27-nation bloc’s ecomic embrace during an 11-month transition as two sides tried to negotiate a new free-tre deal to take effect Jan. 1. Talks have alrey slipped past mid-vember date long set as a deline for agreement to be reached if it is to be approved by lawmakers in Britain and EU before year’s end.

Despite stalemate, Raab told Sky News that “re’s a deal to be done.”

He said two sides h me progress on “level playing field” issues — standards U.K. must meet to export into EU.

biggest hurdle appears to be fish, a small part of ecomy with an outsized symbolic importance for Europe’s maritime nations. EU countries want ir boats to be able to keep fishing in British waters, while U.K. insists it must control access and quotas.

“On fisheries, re is a point of principle: As we leave transition, we are an independent coastal state and we’ve got to be able to control our waters,” Raab said.

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, who met through weekend with U.K. counterpart David Frost, has said re are still “significant divergences.”

If re is deal, New Year’s Day will bring huge disruption, with overnight imposition of tariffs and or barriers to U.K.-EU tre. That will hurt both sides, but burden will fall most heavily on Britain, which does almost half its tre with EU.