Emmanuel Macron ‘not sure’ a UK-EU trade deal can be reached by deadline
French President Emmanuel Macron has cast doubt that the UK will strike a trade deal with the EU by the government’s 31 January deadline.
Negotiations will begin between Brussels and the UK next month, with issues such as financial services regulation, fishing rights and tariffs set to be at the fore of discussions.
Boris Johnson’s chief Brexit negotiator David Frost made it clear in a speech last week that the UK would not be looking for future regulatory alignment with the EU.
Instead, Frost said the UK will be after a “Canada free trade agreement-type relationship”.
Speaking to a group of fishermen in Paris yesterday, Macron said the negotiations would be “tense”.
“I am not sure that an agreement will be reached between now and the end of the year,” he said.
“Anyway, it is going to become more tense because [the British] are very hard.”
The French president added that fishing rights could be a particular area of contention in the negotiations.
Under current regulations, fishing boats from other EU countries have access to UK waters.
However, the government has made it very clear that this will not be the case going forward.
Johnson said in a recent speech that “British fishing grounds are first and foremost for British boats”.