The office of David McAllister (EPP, DE) Chair of the European Parliament’s EU-UK Coordination Group, has released a statement by McAllister highlighting the importance of the EU reaching a deal with the UK.
In the statement, McAllister expressed that 7 rounds of negotiations have yielded few results for making a deal between the two blocs. He also highlighted that both sides are running out of time, relating the present deal-making situation to a last-minute poker game.
“Michel Barnier just debriefed the UK Coordination Group in the European Parliament about the seventh negotiation round with the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, the past weeks have shown few results. Another month has passed without any meaningful progress. Losing precious time now in the hope of getting a better deal in a last-minute poker game is not helpful, and potentially very detrimental for both sides,” McAllister said.
McAllister went on to highlight that “the EU is not gambling and has no incentive to do so,” in order to explain the importance of reaching a clear and timely deal with the UK.
As of writing this article, the deadline for beginning to ratify the EU-UK deal is the end of October in order to have it completely in force by the end of 2020.
The BREXIT deal is, in theory, designed to give parallel progress between the UK and the EU, however, no deal has been reached yet.
“Parallel progress on all crucial topics (level playing field, governance, fisheries) is therefore essential. We do need fair economic and social conditions in order to preserve our EU model. This is not a technocratic position, but the expression of the European Parliament’s determination to preserve EU standards and achievements in many areas including environmental standards, for the sake and well-being of EU citizens,” McAllister explains.
On 23 June 2016, the UK held a nationwide vote whether to leave the EU or stay in the bloc. The results were that 52% of UK citizens voted to leave and 48% voted to stay.
The original scheduled date for the UK to leave the EU was 29 March 2019 and was set in 2017. On 17 July 2017, BREXIT talks officially began.
Since, there have been many rounds of negotiation, with the main topics being governance and fisheries, that have ultimately not resulted in any sort of deal between the two parties.
It is still unknown if the EU and UK will reach an agreement by the deadline of the end of October 2020.
