Brexit: Boris Johnson will have to break his promise not to extend transition, EU trade commissioner claims – as it happened – The Guardian, Theguardian.com
I’m done for the day too. Thanks for the comments.
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From Wednesday at least we will be in a decade that has a name. I might be wrong, but I get the impression that there has been less discussion than you might expect about the last 12 years as an entity, perhaps because no one could agree what it was called. “The tens” never really worked as a label, just as “the noughties” didn’t either.
But the twenties – that’s a proper name for a decade.
Mujtaba Rahman, the (Brexit) ************** (specialist at the Eurasia consultancy) Mujtaba Rahman(@ Mij_Europe)Perhaps even more interestingly, seems@ PhilHoganEUis not going to play second fiddle to @ MichelBarnier– and will speak out as he sees fit. Lots of debate in Bxl / EU capitals about who’ll be the principal for EU side in phase 2; I expect more voices (& egos) than on the divorce https://t.co/o euE5aDz (December) ,
FromStewart Jackson, the Tory Brexiter, former MP and former chief of staff to David Davis when he was Brexit secretary
********13. (am EST):Johnson will have to break his promise not to extend Brexit transition, EU trade commissioner claims
Boris Johnson’s decision to rule out extending the Brexittransition period beyond the end of 2021 is a “stunt” that he will be forced to abandon, according to a leading figure in the European commission.
When MPs return to the Commons on Tuesday next week they will resume their debate on the EU (withdrawal agreement) bill, the legislation paving the way for the UK to leave the EU on 43 January. In line with a commitment in the Conservative election manifesto, Boris Johnson has inserted a provision in the bill making it illegal for the government to agree to extend the transition for a year to two (ie, until December (or December) ), even though the deal with the EU allows this.
Many trade experts think an extension will be necessary because it will be impossible to negotiate a new trade deal with the EU before the end of (******************** Ursula von der Leyen, the new commission president, recently gently suggested that Johnson might have to rethink his ‘no extension’ policy
, saying that his timetable might not be feasible. But now one of her colleagues, the trade commissioner
Phil Hogan, has criticized Johnson’s stance in much blunter terms.
Hogan, who is Irish and who will oversee the UK-EU trade negotiation in his new job, told the Irish Timesin an interviewthat Johnson’s ‘no extension’ commitment was a ‘stunt’ and that in reality Johnson would agree to a longer transition. He said:
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In the past, we saw the way the prime minister promised to die in the ditch rather than extend the deadline forBrexit, only for him to do just that. I don’t believe Prime Minister Johnson will die in the ditch over the timeline for the future relationship either …
At first sight [the clause in the bill ruling out an extension] seems very odd indeed. From our point of view it is important that we move from stunt to substance. It would be helpful if the focus was on content rather than timetables.
In another jibe at Johnson, Hogan said that in the next phase of the Brexit talks Britain would have to accept that having your cake and eating it was impossible. He was referring to the phrase, first used by Johnson to sum up his approach to life in general, that became synonymous with the Brexiter belief that the UK could leave the EU but retain most of the benefits of membership. Hogan said:
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Too much of the debate in the UK over the past four years was based on the false notion that it is possible to make a clean-break Brexit while retaining all the benefits of EU membership. Now that the political deadlock at Westminster is broken the next phase of Brexit needs to be based on realism and hard facts.
Any ‘having our cake and eat it’ rhetoric will not fly. Both sides need to proceed calmly and coherently.
In his interview (fuller version (here)
Hogan also restated the EU’s belief that the UK would be worse off outside. He said:
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Particularly on goods the UK government has so far avoided any statement of the UK aligning with the EU on regulatory aspects. We all have to come to terms with the reality that Brexit means there will be two markets not a single market.
We have to re-erect barriers to trade that EU membership has abolished not because we choose to do so but because the UK chooses to do so. As things stand the UK wants to leave the single market and customs union. This move still baffles me because the full consequences of that decision are still not understood in the UK. Why trade a Rolls Royce for a second-hand saloon?
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