BRUSSELS – In the end, not even dinner of scallops and steamed turbot could bring the leaders of the European Union and Britain any closer together than months of talks by negotiators seeking to cobble together a trade deal in the wake of their Brexit divorce.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave the two sides four more days, until Sunday, to end four years of diplomatic heartburn and salvage the unlikeliest of trade deals after the U.K. voted to leave the EU in 2016. Otherwise, they face a tumultuous no-deal split at the end of the month, threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in losses.
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Even after two lengthy phone calls and a three-hour dinner in less than a week, there was still far too much which was unpalatable.
“We understand each other’s positions. They remain far apart," von der Leyen said.
Johnson flew to Brussels in hopes of injecting new momentum into talks that are stuck on issues including fishing rights and competition rules.
But there was no breakthrough at the three-hour meeting, which Downing St. described as “frank.” Von der Leyen said it was “lively and interesting." But a whiff of progress anywhere? None.
Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but remains in its economic structures until the end of the year. That means a serious economic rupture on Jan. 1 that could be chaotic if there is no trade agreement.
The two leaders had hoped to inject political momentum into trade talks that have become hopelessly deadlocked on fishing and other key aspects of the future relationship. But Britain and the EU gave ominously opposing views of the main sticking points — and each insisted the other must move to reach agreement.
Johnson told lawmakers in the House of Commons that the bloc's demands that the U.K. continue to adhere to its standards or face retaliation were not "terms that any prime minister of this country should accept.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that the EU would not compromise on its core principles. Merkel told the German parliament that the bloc would "take a path without an … agreement if there are conditions from the British side that we can’t accept.”
The U.K. left the EU after 47 years of membership, but remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union until the end of the year. Reaching a trade deal by then would ensure there are no tariffs or quotas on trade in goods on Jan. 1, although there would still be new costs and red tape for businesses.
When Johnson was crossing over the English Channel to Brussels, down below the impact of Brexit was already visible with extra long tailbacks in France's Calais where truckers were trying to meet the demands of U.K. companies which want to lay in extra stock ahead of potential disruption on Jan. 1.
“For about the last three weeks we’ve seen an increase in the flow of traffic toward Great Britain due to stockpiling. The platforms, whether it’s the port and the (Euro)tunnel, don’t have capacity to absorb this increase in traffic," said Sebastien Rivera, Secretary General of France's National Federation of Road Transport.
“Right now, it takes (truckers) easily three or four more hours to cross the English Channel. So it is easily 240 or 300 euros of financial costs to the company, that’s for nothing more than the additional time it takes," Rivera told the Associated Press.
Failure to secure a trade deal would cause much greater disruption, bringing tariffs and other barriers that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the bloc.
Months of trade talks have failed to bridge the gaps on three issues — fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes.
While both sides want a deal, they have fundamentally different views of what it entails. The EU fears Britain will slash social and environmental standards and pump state money into U.K. industries, becoming a low-regulation economic rival on the bloc’s doorstep — hence the demand for strict “level playing field” guarantees in exchange for access to its markets.
Merkel said “the integrity of the single market must be preserved.”
“We must have a level playing field not just for today, but we must have one for tomorrow or the day after, and to do this we must have agreements on how one can react if the other changes their legal situation,” Merkel said.
The U.K. government sees Brexit as about sovereignty and “taking back control” of the country’s laws, borders and waters. It claims the EU is trying to bind Britain to the bloc’s rules indefinitely.
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Associated Press writer Raf Casert reported this story in Brussels and AP writer Jill Lawless reported from London. AP writers Geir Moulson in Berlin and Jeff Schaeffer in Calais, France, contributed to this report.
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