The EU should agree a quick trade deal with Britain because of the coronavirus pandemic, Michael Gove said on Monday, as Number 10 demanded EU leaders move to break the Brexit deadlock.
Britain rebuffed EU calls to request an extension to the Brexit transition period to buy more time to negotiate a deal and prevent the two sides being forced to trade on WTO terms alone after December 31.
“I think the Covid crisis, in some respects, should concentrate the minds of EU negotiators, reinforcing the vital importance of coming to a conclusion,” Mr Gove, a cabinet minister, said.
“Deadlines concentrate minds,” he said, before adding that the history of Brexit proved that, “whenever a deadline was extended the light at the end of the tunnel was replaced with more tunnel.”
Mr Gove told the Future Relationship with the EU scrutiny committee that it was still possible, despite the virus, to finalise a trade deal by the end of this year, which is when the Brexit transition period ends.
Britain will not ask for an extension, he said. The economic impact of coronavirus would make other countries eager to strike trade deals with Britain, he added, which would not be possible during the transition period.
Michel Barnier on Friday accused Britain of wasting time in the trade negotiations, which were held online last week because of the virus. He said there was no progress in areas such as fisheries, the level playing field guarantees on tax, labour rights, state aid and the environment and the role of the European Court of Justice.
Amid frustrations at the limits of the European Commission’s negotiating mandate, Number 10 called on the EU’s national leaders to intervene in the talks.
“Clearly there will need to be political movement on the EU side to move negotiations forward, particularly on fisheries and level playing field issues, in order to help find a balanced solution which reflects the political realities on both sides,” the prime minister’s spokesman said.
EU sources in Brussels said it was far too early to involve the bloc’s heads of state and government, who were, in any case, consumed with dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
The EU wants to preserve access to UK fishing waters under existing conditions and be part of the free trade agreement. Britain insists any fishing agreement must be separate from the trade deal and access be negotiated annually.
Britain argues that EU demands for level playing field guarantees are far more stringent than similar commitments made with other non-EU countries and insists on the right to diverge from EU rules after Brexit.
Leading European politicians and trade experts have warned that leaving the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union without a trade deal will compound the economic damage of the coronavirus. The government says failing to leave on time would prolong uncertainty for business.
“We are leaving the transition period on December 31, we will work with the EU to try to do that with a deal,” the prime minister’s spokesman said, “But nobody should be in any doubt that the transition period is going to end on December 31.”
Mr Gove described the odds of a successful conclusion to the trade negotiations as “better than two to one”, despite admitting only “limited progress” was made in the UK-EU negotiations last week.
The Covid-19 outbreak forced the cancellation of two planned rounds of trade talks and the isolation of both sides’ chief negotiators and put even more pressure on an already tight deadline.
Both sides plan a high level conference to review progress at the end of June. According to the Withdrawal Agreement, the UK has until July to ask for an extension to the Brexit transition period of up to two year.
There are further two planned rounds of virtual negotiations before the conference.
“I am confident that the EU […] will want to operate in a constructive way, as we do,” Mr Gove said before adding that the Treaty of Rome, the EU’s foundation treaty took less than a year.
He told MPs the UK would publish the legal text of its vision of the future trade deal in “a matter of weeks”.
Mr Gove played down earlier suggestions by the British government that it would walk out of talks in June if it felt insufficient progress had been made in the trade negotiations.
“I think it is the case that both the UK and the EU will want to ensure the talks will progress,” Mr Gove said.