The Times - UK (2020-10-17)

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addressed. He additionally asked for a

commitment from Mr Barnier that the

EU recognised that any potential

agreement required compromise on

both sides.

Last night Mr Barnier said he would

speak by video conference with Lord

Frost on Monday as “both chief negoti-

ators agreed to talk again on Monday to

discuss the structure of these talks”.

The pause in talks, which could be as

short as 24 hours, will not affect a meet-

ing of a joint EU and UK committee

that is negotiating the implementation

of the withdrawal treaty in Northern

Ireland but it is unclear when discus-

sions will begin again.

There was scepticism on the Euro-

pean side that the British position

amounted to a walk-out even if the

The future is orange David Grant Suttie, 21, right, fought off boredom during lockdown by enlisting his friend Alex Humphreys, 22, to help plant pumpkin seeds at

his family farm in East Lothian. The students now have a crop of 3,000, including Pot of Gold and Jack O’ Lantern varieties, for visitors to handpick for Halloween

A A A A C C E E

G I I I N N N O

O O R R R R S S

S T T T T U U V

Solve all five clues using each

letter underneath once only

1 Member of the clergy ( 5 )

2 Follow on ( 5 )

3 Pastoral ( 6 )

4 Brackish, foul (8)

5 Work such as Handel’sMessiah ( 8 )

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Talks on a future trade deal are “over”

and a round of negotiations in London

next week has been cancelled after

Boris Johnson called on Britain to pre-

pare for a no-deal Brexit yesterday.

In a sharp escalation of rhetoric the

prime minister’s spokesman accused

EU leaders of seeking to impose a series

of “unacceptable” demands after yes-

terday’s summit in Brussels.

He warned there was “no point” in

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotia-

tor, travelling to London on Monday to

resume negotiations unless Europe

fundamentally changed its position.

“The trade talks are over. The EU

have effectively ended them by saying

that they do not want to change their

negotiating position,” the spokesman

said. “There is only any point in Michel

Barnier coming to London next week if

he is prepared to discuss all of the issues

on the basis of legal texts in an

accelerated way, without the UK

being required to make all of the

moves.”

After a telephone call with Mr

Barnier yesterday, Lord Frost, the

prime minister’s negotiator, told

him to cancel a planned

meeting because “there

was no basis for negoti-

ations”.

“He and Michel

Barnier agreed to

talk again early

next week,” a

No 10 spokesman

said.

During what

was a tense call,

Lord Frost told Mr Bar-

nier that there would be

no negotiations until

Brussels gave clear and

precise assurances. He

said that discussions

could continue only

on the basis of

tabled legal texts

and that all issues,

not just Mr Barnier’s

preferred ones, must be

Britain on brink after halting EU talks

ultimatum and cancellation added

pressure to an already tight timetable.

Angela Merkel, the German chancel-

lor, has already conceded that the EU

will have to give ground while Mr

Barnier has said the EU side was pre-

pared to accelerate the talks.

“We also need to be ready to compro-

mise,” Mrs Merkel said yesterday. “In

some places things have moved well, in

other places there is still a lot of work to

be done. We have asked the UK to re-

main open to compromise, so that an

agreement can be reached. This of

course means that we, too, will need to

make compromises.”

Mr Johnson, in his own public com-

ments, did not threaten to pull out of

the talks but said that there needed to

be a “fundamental change of approach”

from Brussels before negotiations

could restart. “Given that they have re-

fused to negotiate seriously for much of

the last few months, and given that this

summit appears explicitly to rule out a

Canada-style deal, I have concluded

that we should get ready for January 1

with arrangements that are more like

Australia’s based on simple principles of

global free trade.”

He added: “After 45 years of mem-

bership they are not willing — unless

there is some fundamental change of

approach — to offer this country the

same terms as Canada. And so with

high hearts and complete confidence

we will prepare to embrace the

alternative.”

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minis-

ter, played down the row and said that

he was “cautiously optimistic”.

President Macron said it was not for

him to decide the terms for talks that

“are not designed to make the prime

minister of Great Britain happy”. “We

will not sacrifice any position, any

interest,” he said.

Britain and the EU must keep talking

about a deal, leading article, page 31

Bruno Waterfield Brussels

Oliver Wright Policy Editor

Analysis

I

s it really over? Boris

Johnson has told the

European Union that

unless it changes

tack in trade, fishing

and security talks, the

negotiations are finished

(Bruno Waterfield

writes). “As far as I can

see they have abandoned

the idea of a free trade

deal,” the prime minister

said. “There doesn’t seem

to be any progress.”

Behind the scenes,

government sources are

spinning his words hard

and planned negotiations

next week have been

cancelled — for a day or

two anyway.

“The trade talks are

over — the EU has

effectively ended them

and we aren’t going to

take part in a

nonsense process,” a

source said. “Only if

the EU fundamentally

changes position

will it be

worth

talking.” In

Brussels,

speaking an hour or so

after Mr Johnson,

President Macron was in

no mood to placate the

prime minister.

“It’s not the job of the

leaders of the 27

countries who have

decided to stay in the EU

to keep the British prime

minister happy,” Mr

Macron said. “It’s the UK

that wants to leave and

which needs a deal more

than we do.”

So behind all the

bombast and briefings is

this finally the end of the

road for the negotiations?

No — or not yet. Much

of this is theatre even if it

is deadly serious. The

danger is that the drama

is playing with political

fire and real lives. Michel

Barnier, the EU’s lead

negotiator, was expecting

to get on the Eurostar on

Monday morning and

told the world so. But

after a grumpy phone call

with Lord Frost, the

British chief negotiator,

he has been told not to

bother. The pair will talk

on the telephone instead.

The key to

understanding what is

going on is what the

government means by a

“fundamental change” in

the EU’s approach. It

turns out that it is not

such a big a demand.

Britain wants

negotiations to be

“intensified” — a code

word in the talks — and

the trigger for the prime

minister’s anger was the

decision by a Brussels

summit yesterday to drop

the adjective “intensify”

in reference to continuing

negotiations.

By “intensified”, Lord

Frost has a specific set of

criteria in mind. There

must be “restricted

sessions” of negotiations

every day across the

whole range of issues,

held at an accelerated

pace and with a focus on

legal texts or at least

some kind of written

documents. Using the key

code word, Mr Barnier

signalled on Thursday

that he had “intensive

discussions” in mind.

“We’re prepared to speed

up,” he said. Last night,

the French negotiator

agreed to discuss the

structure of talks.

Some 40 minutes after

the Downing Street

ultimatum, Ursula von

der Leyen, the president

of European Commission,

made clear that if

Downing Street wanted

negotiations her team

was ready to “intensify

these negotiations”.

Mr Johnson’s decision

to hit the pause button on

talks has not helped the

atmosphere of an already

stressed and tense

process. Time is running

out and there are only

three weeks to go.

Tempers are flaring on

both sides of the Channel

as the final high-wire act

of Brexit begins and the

show goes on for now. It

is a performance but a

dangerous one and there

is no safety net.

Michel Barnier, left, and Lord

Frost will talk on Monday