Germany, France call for UK concessions in EU-UK trade talks

Germany and France on Tuesday pressured the United Kingdom to make concessions in three key areas of Brexit trade negotiations — fishing rights, corporate governance and fair competition — or face a Jan. 1 no-deal scenario which would likely further harm a U.K. economy already battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Ireland, which is at the heart of the negotiations because it has the EU's only land border with the U.K. and is very trade dependent on its neighbor, insisted meanwhile that Britain would let its Thursday deadline for a deal slip and would go on talking for at least two more weeks.

“There are a number of weeks left in this negotiation, not a number of days," Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.

“Certainly, I don’t see that there will be any major breakthrough this week," Coveney said in Luxembourg, where EU negotiator Michel Barnier was debriefing Europe ministers on the state of play and make sure the 27 member nations keep a united front, something which they have done ever since the U.K. decided to leave the EU four years ago.

Coveney stressed that even for a bare and basic trade relationship, key priorities still need to be addressed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“There’s an awful lot of work to do for the two negotiating teams," he said.

Coveney got all the backing he wanted from France and Germany.

His German counterpart, Michael Roth, said that “frankly speaking, we are at a very critical stage in the negotiations," and said that “time is running out. That’s why we expect substantial progress by our friends in the United Kingdom" in key areas centering on rules to ensure fair economic competition, legal oversight of any deal and fisheries.

France's Europe minister, Clement Beaune, said that particularly on access of U.K. companies to the EU market, the bloc had to be very strict in making sure British firms wouldn't be able to undercut their continental rivals because of minimal regulation and excessive state subsidies.

“Otherwise we would have unfair competition, which is not backed by our citizens, companies and workers," Beaune said.

Johnson has long billed the two-day EU summit that starts Thursday as an ultimate deadline, but he has been prone to let target dates slip during the tortuous Brexit negotiations. The bloc has always insisted that it's willing to negotiate until early November to craft a deal, however basic.

Since last month, the member states have also become ardent in demanding legal guarantees on governance of any deal since Johnson in September introduced legislation that breaches the Brexit withdrawal agreement he himself signed with the EU only last year.

Coveney said that if any deal was to be approved, Johnson would need to get rid of any national legislation that contravenes the withdrawal agreement.

“That legislation will need to be removed in order for a any final deal to be ratified," he said.

The EU has said that any agreement will take about two months for legal ratification, translation into the many European languages and for approval from the European Parliament, making for an effective cutoff date of around Nov. 1.

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