AFP, Brussels :
The EU has rejected the latest UK offer on fishing but is ready to pursue a post-Brexit trade deal even beyond the end of the year, diplomats said on Tuesday.
According to sources in a meeting of ambassadors, EU negotiator Michel Barnier said he could not guarantee there would be a deal but that the EU’s “door will remain open”. Britain is due to leave the EU single market at midnight on December 31, with or without a deal.
The only way for any agreement to go into effect before then is if the member states agree to apply it provisionally – pending the approval of the EU parliament.
Britain has rejected the idea of continuing talks next year.
“EU negotiators are in a last push now to make progress and to clinch a deal acceptable for both sides,” Barnier said, according to several European diplomats.
“The EU will not close its door to the UK and remains ready to negotiate even beyond January 1.”
According to the diplomats, Britain had suggested EU access to UK fish stocks be reduced by 35 percent, phased in over three years. The EU had suggested a level of 25 percent, and over six years.
But crucially the British offer did not include “pelagic fish” – those that swim freely away from coasts or the seabed – and had not addressed inshore fishing at all.
If the loss of access to pelagic species is included the EU would lose 60 percent of its current catch, they said.
“In other words quite far outside the mandate of the EU negotiator,” one EU source said, adding: “Barnier has not asked for his mandate to change.”
The EU has rejected the latest UK offer on fishing but is ready to pursue a post-Brexit trade deal even beyond the end of the year, diplomats said on Tuesday.
According to sources in a meeting of ambassadors, EU negotiator Michel Barnier said he could not guarantee there would be a deal but that the EU’s “door will remain open”. Britain is due to leave the EU single market at midnight on December 31, with or without a deal.
The only way for any agreement to go into effect before then is if the member states agree to apply it provisionally – pending the approval of the EU parliament.
Britain has rejected the idea of continuing talks next year.
“EU negotiators are in a last push now to make progress and to clinch a deal acceptable for both sides,” Barnier said, according to several European diplomats.
“The EU will not close its door to the UK and remains ready to negotiate even beyond January 1.”
According to the diplomats, Britain had suggested EU access to UK fish stocks be reduced by 35 percent, phased in over three years. The EU had suggested a level of 25 percent, and over six years.
But crucially the British offer did not include “pelagic fish” – those that swim freely away from coasts or the seabed – and had not addressed inshore fishing at all.
If the loss of access to pelagic species is included the EU would lose 60 percent of its current catch, they said.
“In other words quite far outside the mandate of the EU negotiator,” one EU source said, adding: “Barnier has not asked for his mandate to change.”
