PARIS, Dec 14, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – EU chief Ursula von der Leyen expressed
satisfaction on Monday over talks with Britain to agree a post-Brexit trade
pact, saying there was progress as negotiators entered the “last mile”.
“First of all there is movement. That is good… We are talking about a
new beginning with old friends,” she told a conference organised by the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
“We are on the very last mile to go. But it is an essential one. We want a
level playing field, not only at the start, but also over time,” she added.
“This is the architecture we are building. We are fine about the
architecture itself, but the details in it — do they really fit? These are
crucial points because it is a matter of fairness, fair competition and we
want to ensure that.”
Her comments came as EU and British officials were set to return to the
negotiating table on Monday after von der Leyen and British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson agreed to abandon a supposed make-or-break weekend deadline.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire had in a radio interview earlier
warned that in the event of a no deal in the trade talks “the losers will be
the British. We don’t lose much.”
He said that according to government estimates Brexit would only snip 0.1
percent off GDP in France in 2021 and French trade to Britain “was not much
as far France’s total global trade volume is concerned”.
He criticised the concept of Brexit, borrowing a phrase from the last
novel by British spy novelist John Le Carre, whose death was announced
Sunday.
“Brexit, to quote a very simple phrase of John Le Carre — to whom I take
this opportunity to pay tribute — is ‘lunacy’,” Le Maire told France Info
radio.
“I regret that my British friends have to pay the price, because they are
paying the price for populism, they are paying the price for lies,” he said.