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“We cannot accept that a jurisdiction other that the Court of Justice of the European Union determines the law and imposes its interpretation on the institutions of the Union,” Barnier said in prepared remarks at a meeting of EU law experts in Lisbon.
He stressed there is little time to waste if a deal on a future trading relationship is to be hammered out successfully before the U.K. leaves the bloc next year.
“If we want to put in place the foundations for our future relationship before the exit of the U.K., we must accelerate,” he said, adding that Europe still required “more clarity” from London on a number of issues linked to its future trading relationship and comparing British delays to “a game of hide and seek.”
Barnier also criticized British opposition to the EU’s position as a “blame game,” saying London had to face the fact that the U.K. could not retain membership to a number of EU programs after Brexit.
The U.K. said Wednesday it will accept the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in order to participate in EU programs post Brexit.
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Three days of talks in Brussels wrapped up with little headway on the most important issues, in particular on how to prevent a hard Irish border, according to an EU official in an anonymous briefing to reporters in Brussels. The EU said the U.K. has still not come to grips with all the steps needed to avoid frontier checks on the island of Ireland, which is a condition for the entire Brexit deal, and hasn’t formally pitched its plan, the official said.