Boris Johnson’s deadline for Brexit deal is impossible, says EU chief Ursula von der Leyen

Britain will find it impossible to negotiate a comprehensive future relationship with the EU by Boris Johnson’s December deadline.

Boris Johnson greets Ursula von der Leyen outside 10 Downing Street. Picture: AFP

Britain will find it impossible to negotiate a comprehensive and close future relationship with the EU by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s December deadline, the new head of the European Commission said on Wednesday.

In a stark message to Mr Johnson, Ursula von der Leyen warned that the price of a clean-break Brexit would be a distant partnership with the EU and new barriers to trade. She added that even this would be difficult to achieve without an extension to the transition period, which has been ruled out by Mr Johnson.

Instead, she said the issues to be resolved would have to be prioritised, setting the scene for an early confrontation between the two sides in deciding which areas of future co-operation to tackle first.

“Without an extension of the transition period beyond 2020, you cannot expect to agree on every single aspect of our new partnership,” Ms von der Leyen said at the London School of Economics.

“We are ready to work day and night to get as much of this done within the timeframe we have.”

Ms von der Leyen met Mr Johnson in Downing Street on Wednesday afternoon, when the Prime Minister reiterated that he would not extend the implementation period beyond 2020.

Mr Johnson said he wanted to begin negotiations on a Canada-style free-trade deal “as soon as possible” after Britain leaves the EU on January 31.

He also set out a series of red lines, including that there must be no alignment with the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and that Britain must “maintain control” of its fishing waters and immigration system.

Ms von der Leyen said unless the UK accepted the principle of a level playing field in rules and regulations after Brexit, there would inevitably be barriers to trade between Britain and the bloc.

“We will go as far as we can but our partnership cannot be the same as before,” she said. “It cannot be as close as before. With every decision comes a trade-off. Without the free movement of people, you cannot have the free movement of capital, goods and services. Without a level playing field on environment, labour, taxation and state aid, you cannot have the highest quality access to the world’s largest single market.”

She said while the EU was ready to sign up to a deal based on “zero tariffs, zero quotas”, there also had to be “zero dumping” of cheap exports on European markets. “There can be no compromise on this,” she added.

Under the terms of the withdrawal agreement, both sides can request an extension of up to two years to the existing trading relationship. The talks will have to cover not only the future trading relationship between Britain and the EU but other potentially contentious issues such as fishing rights, data protection, environmental rules and transport.

Formal talks are not expected to begin until March after Euro­pean ministers sign off the bloc’s negotiating mandate in February.

The meeting with Ms von der Leyen came as No 10 said Mr Johnson would take a “sector by sector” approach to trade negoti­ations in contrast to previous talks with Brussels. The government believes the first phase of Brexit talks was undermined by a framework for the negotiations that meant “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed”.

No 10 intends to take a phased approach, “banking” agreements on areas such as fishing, financial services and other negotiations as they progress.

The Times