The U.K. and European Union have an end-year deadline to complete a deal.
Photo: Luke MacGregor/Bloomberg NewsBrexit trade talks hit early troubles as British and European Union negotiators accused each other of being inflexible and concerns mounted that there won’t be enough time to complete a broad deal by the end-of-year deadline.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said Friday the British government has so far failed to discuss seriously key aspects of a future trade agreement, as the first full round of post-Brexit negotiations since early March ended on an acrimonious note.
The U.K. government in a statement said “limited progress” was made in the talks.
“We do not recognize the suggestion that we have not engaged seriously with the EU in any area. We have just had a negotiating round lasting most of a week,” said a British government spokesman.
The two sides have an end-of-year deadline to complete a deal although they could extend that period if both sides agreed to do so by end-June. The British government repeated Friday that “we will not agree to an extension under any circumstances.”
Covid-19 has added a new level of uncertainty to the already complex process of agreeing how the trading partners will cooperate. Both chief negotiators were forced into self-isolation by the new coronavirus and a previous round of talks was canceled. Meanwhile, the EU and U.K. economies have been shattered by the virus.
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Despite this, the two sides held some 40 videoconference discussions this week on the full range of issues in the talks, Mr. Barnier said. But he said the gaps on key points weren’t narrowing.
“Our aim for this second round” was “to advance on all areas of the negotiation in parallel—including the most difficult areas,” Mr. Barnier said in a news conference. “But I regret that the United Kingdom refused to engage seriously on a number of fundamental issues.”
The U.K. expressed regret that the EU offer or a free-trade agreement on goods trade “falls well short of recent precedent in FTAs it has agreed with other sovereign countries.”
The EU is aiming for a broad trade and security agreement, with zero-quota, zero-tariff access to each other’s markets but wants a swath of U.K. commitments to EU standards and legal principles in response. Britain has said it would sign up to an agreement only if it is largely freed from EU rules, standards and legal oversight.
Mr. Barnier said the two sides remain far apart on the EU’s demand that Britain commit to precise environmental, state-aid, labor and social standards that the bloc says are needed to ensure fair competition in future. The U.K. also hasn’t presented any proposals for rules governing fishing in U.K. waters, a politically fraught point.
The EU said there hadn’t been progress in bridging differences on how the accord will be structured and its implementation enforced. The two sides also continue to disagree over a role for the EU courts in a future agreement and what Mr. Barnier said was a British plan to weaken its data-protection rules, which he said jeopardized future cooperation on crime and terrorism issues.
In Britain, several proponents of Brexit have said a delay could be stomached, but government officials argue that pushing the knotty issues of the future relations into next year will simply throw up new headaches, such as how much the U.K. must pay to remain part of the trading club.
There are also advantages to pressing on now. The Covid-19 crisis shrouds some of the economic pain Brexit is expected to inflict as the U.K. puts up trading barriers with its largest commercial partner. It also sows division among the EU members and potentially dulls appetite for a trade dispute with the U.K.
But Britain’s hand is also weakened. The machinery of British government has already been re-orientated away from Brexit. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Brexit project’s cheerleader, was hospitalized with Covid-19 and is still in convalescence. Even before he was struck down with the virus, he said the Brexit talks weren’t being discussed about much in Downing Street.
Analysts say that the gambit to press ahead with talks is a hardball tactic: hoping the EU will fold on key concessions around granting U.K. preferred access to the single market, in a bid to avoid sparking yet another crisis. Mr. Barnier reiterated Friday the EU is open to an extension.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Max Colchester at max.colchester@wsj.com
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