Oliver JJ Lane – November 11, 2020
Yet another Brexit deadline has been floated, this time by European negotiators who have called November 19th the absolute deadline for a draft Brexit deal.
Michel Barnier and his team of negotiators returned to London this week for yet another round of Brexit talks, parts of the final approach to Britain finally decoupling from the European Union. Although the UK officially departed the bloc in January 2020, it has remained a non-voting member of the Union in all but name since as part of the so-called transition period which expires at the end of the year.
While several Brexit deadlines have come and gone — the idea becoming less and less meaningful with many involved increasingly assuming that talks will run to the very moment Britain leaves the transition period, and probably beyond — the EU has named another. European Union leaders are due to meet by video conference on November 19th, and Brexit negotiators from Brussels say there has to be an agreement in principle in place by then for it to be ratified by those leaders.
Left-wing newspaper The Guardian reports a Brussels source who said of the November 19th date: “If there isn’t good news by then, then you really have to say that time is up – it just isn’t possible… The leaders will need to see that it is there.”
The content of the Brexit deal will decide whether, in essence, Britain will actually leave the European Union at the end of this year or if it will remain in perpetual limbo.