UK-EU Future Relations Round 7 is over

The seventh round of negotiations on the Future Relations between UK and EU has concluded. There are clearly still major issue to resolve and both parties stated that there is still not enough progress in the talks.

Michel Barnier after 7th round of EU-UK talks: “We are asking for nothing more, but nothing less, than what PM Johnson committed to in our joint Political Declaration last October, together with the 27 EU leaders”.

David Frost: ”We have just concluded the seventh round of negotiations with the EU. As I said last week, agreement is still possible, and it is still our goal, but it is clear that it will not be easy to achieve. Substantive work continues to be necessary across a range of different areas of potential UK-EU future cooperation if we are to deliver it. We have had useful discussions this week but there has been little progress.
“The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to make progress. There are other significant areas which remain to be resolved and, even where there is a broad understanding between negotiators, there is a lot of detail to work through. Time is short for both sides”.

Here is the link to the full statement by UK lead negotiator, David Frost: David Frost’s statement following the conclusion of round 7 negotiations with the EU

Here is the link to the full statement by EU lead negotiator, Michel Barnier: Remarques de Michel Barnier suite au septième round de négociations sur un futur partenariat entre l’Union européenne et le Royaume-Uni