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In a statement on Tuesday, the British government said: “we will not formally be convening negotiating work strands” on Wednesday as planned, although it intended to publish a draft free trade agreement “in the near future”.
Boris Johnson is publicly committed to winding up the transition period at the end of the year — his government would have to change UK law to extend it — but negotiators on both sides believe a delay is coming.
EU diplomats said that as well as negotiations being disrupted — starting with planned talks next week — the pandemic would make it hugely difficult for Britain to prepare for new trading conditions.
“There will simply be no bandwidth to prepare for a no-deal [outcome] on the UK side,” said one EU official, referring to the possibility of the transition ending without a new trading agreement in place.
Even an agreed “Canada-style” trade deal would require British companies to prepare for a new era of extra costs and complex paperwork from January 1, 2021, just as they were struggling to cope with effects of the virus.
Mr Johnson’s spokesman said it was “not true” that the prime minister would consider an extension to the transition, but privately Whitehall officials no longer believe the December 31 end date is set in stone.
A well-placed person in Whitehall said that while a delay was “not the case politically”, that may change if disruption continued. “If we can’t continue talks properly then we are in a different world,” the person said.
Others said the issue was simply “not being discussed” at the moment in Whitehall, where the attention of senior ministers and officials was focused on the epidemic. [...]
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