Anticipated announcement marks the tip of a key chapter within the Brexit saga, and comes only one week earlier than the UK exits the EU’s single market.
The UK and European Union have agreed on a post-Brexit commerce deal after months of torturous negotiations, averting the prospect of a chaotic and acrimonious divorce on the finish of this 12 months.
The announcement on Thursday got here only one week earlier than the UK exits the EU’s single market and customs union on December 31.
“Deal is completed,” a Downing Road supply stated. “Now we have taken again management of our cash, borders, legal guidelines, commerce and our fishing waters.
“The deal is implausible information for households and companies in each a part of the UK. Now we have signed the primary free commerce settlement primarily based on zero tariffs and nil quotas that has ever been achieved with the EU.
“Now we have delivered this nice deal for the complete United Kingdom in document time, and beneath extraordinarily difficult circumstances, which protects the integrity of our inside market and Northern Eire’s place inside it,” the supply stated.
EU and British negotiators had been up all night time engaged on the deal, reportedly fuelled by takeaway pizzas, as they hashed out remaining particulars on the Berlaymont in Brussels, the headquarters of the European Fee.
Johnson and European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen, in the meantime, spoke a number of instances by cellphone.
“Now we have lastly discovered an settlement. It was a protracted and winding street however we’ve received an excellent deal to indicate for it,” der Leyen stated in Brussels, minutes after the deal was introduced.
“It’s honest, it’s a balanced deal and it’s the proper and accountable factor to do for each side.”
The deal comes greater than 4 years after a slim majority of Britons voted to stop the bloc in a June 2016 referendum on EU membership
The settlement doc is alleged to be about 2,000 pages lengthy. In essence, it’s a slim free commerce pact surrounded with different agreements on a variety of points together with vitality, transport and police and safety cooperation.
Extra particulars to comply with…