Foreign Desk Report
BERLIN: European Union ambassadors have started to assess the post-Brexit trade deal clinched on Thursday between the bloc and the United Kingdom, as both sides move quickly to ratify the pact. The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, is updating diplomats from the bloc’s 27 member states on Friday (Christmas Day) as they begin the review process of the deal document.
It is yet to be published, but thought to be about 1,500 pages long. Friday’s meeting in Brussels, which the group is attending in person, comes less than a day after the Brexit deal was finally sealed, following months of fractious negotiations defined by divisions over fishing rights, competition rules and governance issues.
Talks were down to the wire, with the UK due to exit the EU’s single market and customs union next week, on December 31. The deal averts the prospect of a chaotic and acrimonious divorce at the end of this year and ensures the UK and EU can continue to trade in goods without tariffs or quotas, smoothing trade worth hundreds of billions of pounds and euros a year between the pair.
Legislators in the UK and EU are now required to sign off on the deal. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday said he hoped the agreement would be put to the UK Parliament for a vote next week, on December 30, just one day before the Brexit transition period expires.
MPs are expected to sign off on the deal. Johnson’s governing Conservative Party has a strong majority in the legislative chamber and the main opposition Labour Party on Thursday confirmed it would back the agreement, saying it was the only alternative to a chaotic no-deal Brexit scenario. On the EU side, the agreement needs the approval of all of the bloc’s member states and the European Parliament, which has ruled out rushing through ratification of the deal before the end of this year.
EU law does, however, include a mechanism for agreements to be provisionally applied without its parliament’s consent if approved by its member states. The European Parliament said on Thursday it would analyse the deal in detail before deciding whether to approve the agreement in the new year. “We will act responsibly in order to minimise disruption to citizens and prevent the chaos of a no-deal scenario,” EU Parliament President David Sassoli said on Twitter. In essence, the deal is a narrow free trade pact surrounded with other agreements on a range of issues including energy, transport, and police and security cooperation.
