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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday that U.K. and European Union negotiators had “found a way forward on most issues” that remained the major stumbling blocks in their talks about a trade deal. “The path may be very narrow but it is there,” she added.
- Von der Leyen cautioned that discussions about the right of EU fishermen in British waters were “still very difficult,” but revealed that serious progress had been made on the question or regulatory alignment to avoid unfair competition, and the governance of the future system.
- “This is now a case of being so close and yet being so far away from each other,” she said.
- Attention is now turning to the capacity of parliaments on both sides to ratify the deal before Dec. 31, the date when the country will formally leave the European single market.
- Jacob Rees-Mogg, the leader of the House of Commons, has suggested that the U.K. parliamentary process could be “truncated” and the deal be ratified in 24 hours. And he hasn’t yet announced when — or whether — lawmakers could go on a Christmas recess.
- The European Parliament, however, is unlikely to take such a swift action, and has let it be known that it wouldn’t be ready to rubber-stamp a complex deal in a hurried manner, raising the risk it might not vote on it before the legal deadline of Dec. 31.
Read: With Brexit Talks in Final Stretch, Boris Johnson Has Reasons to Deal
The outlook: If fisheries really are the last source of major differences between the two sides, EU and U.K. leaders would find it hard to explain a failure of the talks hinging on an activity that amounts to 0.1% of the U.K.’s gross domestic product — and much less for the EU.
The legal and procedural obstacles to a ratification before the end of the year are serious, but may not be unsurmountable. But they will involve some tweaking of the current rules, which might mean either a temporary implementation of the treaty from Jan. 1 pending Parliament’s approval, or an extension of the current “extension period” by another few weeks.
Read: EU and U.K. are playing with ‘no-deal’ Brexit fire. It’s time for investors to notice
