Brexit: Is the deadline for talks really this week?

Boris Johnson has said the UK will walk out from Friday but it may not be that simple, writes Jon Stone

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier (AFP via Getty)

Brexit is back on the agenda this coming week, with a major summit coming up in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. There’s talk of time running out. But just how long do negotiators have left?

If you’ve been following Britain’s exit from the EU at all, you’ll know that a new agreement has to be in place by 31 December in order to prevent a no deal from happening as the UK leaves the single market. The trade agreement is supposed to replace some of what the EU currently does and hopefully prevent some (though not all) of the chaos that’s expected at ports.

But both sides are agreed that things need to be wrapped up long before 31 December. That’s because any agreement needs to go through the motions: ratification by parliaments on both sides, translation into legal text and different languages.

This is a real constraint: you may remember that the Brexit withdrawal agreement was agreed on 17 October 2019, but the UK didn’t leave the EU until February. The EU said the same thing about that treaty, and wasn’t bluffing.

The European parliament has said a deal needs to be in place by the end of the month. Boris Johnson has gone further and says he doesn’t see any point in talking further if one hasn’t been signed by the summit this week. This has been interpreted as a threat to walk out.

It may seem like the two sides are broadly on the same page, but those two weeks between the end of this week and the end of the month will be crucial. Even if the UK does walk out of talks, there will still be time for one side or another to come back before it starts getting logistically impossible to avert a no deal.

That’s the main theory on how long negotiators have. But what if they really can go up to 31 December, as a hard deadline? EU trade deals are sometimes implemented provisionally before ratification, and if there was ever a time to do so, it would be to avert a no-deal Brexit.

This hasn’t been discussed much, and it’s not clear whether it would be possible with the UK deal as certain conditions have to be met. But if this week’s deadline does pass, expect it to be a point of discussion.