China News Agency, Brussels, June 15 (Reporter De Yongjian) The EU leadership held a video conference with the British Prime Minister Johnson on the 15th to confirm that the transition period of the "Brexit" in the UK will not be extended regardless of the results of the future bilateral relations negotiations. This year ended December 31 as scheduled.
According to a joint statement issued by the European Commission, the European Council President Michelle, the European Commission President Von Delaine, and the European Parliament Speaker Sassoli held a video conference with Johnson to assess the progress of the future relationship negotiations between the two parties and agree on the next plan of action .
The statement noted that the British government decided not to propose an extension of the "Brexit" transition period. Therefore, according to the "Brexit" agreement reached by the two parties last October, the "Brexit" transition period will end as scheduled on December 31 this year.
The "Brexit" agreement originally stipulated that before July 1 this year, the two sides unanimously agreed that the "Brexit" transition period can be extended once, for a period of one to two years. The 15th statement means that it is impossible to extend the "Brexit" transition period .
Since the UK formally “Brexited” on January 31 this year, the EU-British relationship has immediately transitioned to an 11-month transition period; on March 2 this year, the two parties initiated negotiations on future relations, seeking to trade, diplomacy, national defense, Judicial and other parties reached a package agreement.
But so far the four rounds of talks held by the two parties have made very little progress. The statement on the 15th only stated that the negotiation teams of the two sides had conducted "constructive consultations" to clarify and further understand each other's positions and completed the four rounds of negotiations in the face of the challenges posed by the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. Texts were exchanged.
The statement subsequently stated that the current negotiations required "new momentum". To this end, the negotiating teams of both parties will speed up the negotiation process in July, and strive to "create the most favorable conditions for the completion and approval of an agreement by the end of this year", while confirming that "will be committed to The full implementation of the'Brexit Agreement' in a timely manner means that the transition period of "Brexit" will end on December 31 of this year regardless of the outcome of the negotiations.
According to the plan announced by the European Union earlier, the negotiating teams of the two parties plan to hold several rounds of negotiations from July to September, and will conduct consultations in a "more binding manner" as necessary to ensure progress in the negotiations. Public opinion now generally believes that once negotiations fail, the United Kingdom will "hard Brexit" without agreement, especially if the future European-British economic and trade relations are pending, which will further crack down on the European-British economy after the new coronary pneumonia epidemic. (Finish)