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The EU also volunteered to extend the post-Brexit status quo transition period by a year until the end of 2021. “You cannot absolutely keep separate the withdrawal treaty and the declaration on the future relationship,” Barnier’s boss, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker, said two weeks ago.īuilding an “all-UK customs element” into the treaty to be finalised soon would, EU officials argue, lend May credibility for her insistence to critics at home that Northern Ireland will never need to be treated differently from the mainland.

Still, the EU has signalled a will to blur its distinction between Brexit treaty talks and post-Brexit negotiations - a move that London has demanded since talks started. Negotiators, who declined direct comment for this report, acknowledged in briefings to EU officials the difficulties of linking the treaty to a more general, and non-binding, political declaration of intent on future relations. This could put Northern Ireland in a special relationship with the EU that might distance it from the British mainland to avoid putting up customs posts on Britain’s only EU land border, with Ireland.īut as the two sides try to rebuild momentum following a Brussels summit last week, the readiness of EU negotiator Michel Barnier’s team in that outline deal to soften their refusal to pre-empt the outcome of later talks on a future EU-UK trade pact may help in unlocking an acceptable package.ĮU diplomats briefed on the negotiations said a vital part of a complex package was to “anchor” a reference in the legally-binding withdrawal treaty to May’s proposal to keep the whole of the United Kingdom in a customs partnership with the EU - thus avoiding special treatment for Northern Ireland.

13 focus on how Prime Minister Theresa May balked at an EU demand for a “backstop” clause. REUTERS/Yves HermanĪccounts of how British and EU negotiators came close to a deal on Oct. European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier arrives at an European Union leaders summit in Brussels, Belgium October 17, 2018.

Microsoft jigsaw keeps crashing windows 10