"We have very little time remaining, just a few hours to work through these negotiations... if you want this agreement to enter into force on January 1," he said. Without a trade deal, cross-Channel trade will be conducted on basic WTO rules and a market built over 47 years of economic integration will be disrupted by tariffs on goods. Late on Thursday, Johnson and EU chief Ursula von der Leyen held talks by phone that failed to break the logjam in the eight-month-old negotiation. Unlike previous encounters, which resulted in a joint EU-UK statement, von der Leyen gave her own account of the call. And he stressed that the issue of fish could not be side-stepped: "Everything comes together as a whole.

Source: Dhaka Tribune December 18, 2020 17:03 UTC