Two weeks of talks begin when France opposes UK offer to replace fishing quotas that London says they wrongly favor EU fleets.
The stage is set for a Brexit showdown at an EU summit next week.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s reluctance to make concessions on fish has raised concerns among officials that he may undermine efforts to reach a broader trade deal as negotiators embark on a two-week period of intense talks on Monday.
This follows the call on Saturday between Boris Johnson and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The two sides are nervous that there are still major compromises to be made on the main disagreements between fishing rights and state aid.
The EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, will also talk to Chancellor Angela Merkel about Brexit on Monday, a sign that the bloc is weighing up where it can and where not to make concessions.
“We are entering the final phases of these talks with a constructive stance,” said Federal Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to reporters in Berlin after his own meeting with Barnier. “We still want a solution, but of course there are areas that are very important to us.”
Officials say Macron holds the key if the EU’s position is to weaken.
The fishing industry, while making up a tiny fraction of the French and British economies, has become overly political in the discussions.
The EU has stated that there cannot be a more comprehensive trade deal without agreeing on what access EU boats will have to UK waters.
The UK sees the issue as a sovereignty issue and wants to replace a quota system that EU fishermen say is wrongly favored by a series of annual negotiations that would be more beneficial to the UK. Macron, well aware of his country’s domestic fishing fleet, has strongly opposed it.
Johnson said von der Leyen that he wanted to know whether a deal was possible by October 15 – the day Macron and his 26 EU leaders are due to hold a summit in Brussels to mark the Brexit negotiations will take place.
Most EU countries and the European Commission, which is negotiating with the UK on behalf of the bloc, are known to be in favor of a softer position than Macron and fear that his tough stance could hurt the chances of a broader deal.
At a meeting of heads of state and government last week, high-ranking officials spoke a day later about the prospect of an agreement on this ground, despite a relatively optimistic assessment by Johnson and von der Leyen.
Talk quietly
Negotiations will resume this week in London and continue in Brussels.
If an agreement is not reached by Oct.15, Macron will likely be under pressure from his fellow leaders at the summit to pull out, officials said.
But neither side wants the discussions to go that way. Great Britain because it wants a conclusion beforehand. The EU because it wants to speak about Brexit with one voice.
Speaking to the BBC on Sunday, Johnson said an agreement with the EU was “there” but warned of “difficult problems” that have yet to be resolved. While he doesn’t want to go without a deal, “we can more than live with it” and “thrive mightily,” he said.
The negotiators also need to make progress on the issue of business subsidies. The EU calls for the UK to put in place clearer state aid restrictions with a legally enforceable dispute settlement mechanism.
If the two sides fail to reach an agreement by the end of the year, the UK will leave the EU’s single market and customs union without a trade deal.
This would create disruption and added cost to millions of consumers and businesses as tariffs and quotas are reintroduced for the first time in a generation.
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