The European Parliament has approved the trade agreement concluded by the European Union (EU) with the United Kingdom, putting an end to the Brexit dossier, according to the result of a vote officially announced on Wednesday April 28.

At the end of the ballot, organized on Tuesday evening, 660 deputies approved the text, 5 opposed it and 32 abstained, out of 697 voters.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson hailed the vote on Wednesday as "the last stage of a long journey".

This agreement "brings stability to our new relationship with the EU as vital trading partners, close allies and sovereign equals," he said in a statement.

The outcome of this election, against a background of persistent tensions between London and Brussels, was not in doubt, the President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, having himself welcomed in the evening a vote on "the most ambitious agreement never concluded by the EU with a third country ". 

This treaty "can be the basis on which we are building a new forward-looking EU-UK relationship", he added.

Confidence crisis

The green light from MEPs on this agreement concluded in extremis on December 24th had become urgent: the provisional application of the text, effective since the beginning of the year, ends on Friday.

And the UK rules out any extensions.

Relations between London and Brussels have already been deeply affected by the British decision to leave the single market - official since January 31, 2020, but effective only since the start of the year.

On the trade front, European exports to the UK fell 20.2%, while UK imports into the EU fell 47% in the first two months of 2021, according to Eurostat.

Added to this is a crisis of confidence between the two partners, after several Downing Street decisions calling into question the previous agreement concluded with the EU, the 2019 Brexit Treaty, which organizes the divorce.

The Europeans criticize London in particular for having violated the Irish protocol contained in this treaty, by postponing certain customs and health checks that should be carried out between the British province of Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, in order to avoid the return from a border to the island of Ireland.

In protest, MEPs have long delayed the time to set a date to give the green light to the trade deal.

Friction points

"The British government must not take (this vote) as a blank check or a vote of blind confidence," warned Luxembourg MEP Christophe Hansen (EPP, right).

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, whose services have initiated proceedings against the UK for violating the protocol, assured MEPs that the EU "would" not hesitate "if necessary" to use against London unilateral compensation measures provided for in the agreement.

Other sticking points remain unresolved on both sides of the Channel, as evidenced by France's threat on Tuesday to take "retaliatory measures" against British financial services if the post-Brexit fisheries deal fails. was not enforced.

With AFP

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