Brexit: arduous return to the negotiating table for the EU and the United Kingdom

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This Tuesday, June 2, opened the fourth session of negotiations between London and Brussels and it seems no better off than the previous ones to produce significant progress.

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With our correspondent in Brussels , Pierre Bénazet

European negotiator Michel Barnier is urging the British government to accept an extension of the current transition period which runs until December 31, which Boris Johnson stubbornly refuses. The Prime Minister is accused by the European negotiator of dragging the negotiations and it seems that the two camps have diametrically opposed objectives for the future Euro-British relationship. 

Boris Johnson plans to get personally involved in this month's negotiations, but Europeans do not seem very optimistic about tangible results. Despite everything, they accepted that new negotiating avenues could be explored in the thorny fisheries issue, which seems to justify the British strategy. 

But for Michel Barnier, this week's negotiations will show whether the United Kingdom wants to leave the European internal market and the customs union; a statement in the form of a semi-ultimatum in the face of the intransigence displayed by the British negotiators. They demand, for example, a sort of guarantee of access to the European financial market for the financial sector of the City of London, a requirement likely to prolong the impasse.

There is a theory circulating among Europeans to say that Boris Johnson has no intention of accepting an agreement that would erode an ounce of British sovereignty. And in this perspective, the economic damage of the coronavirus could be used to hide the economic damage of a possible Brexit without agreement. And this would allow Boris Johnson to safely don the costume of the man who saved the United Kingdom from European guardianship.

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• United Kingdom
• Brexit
• European Union

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