BRUSSELS – European Union and British negotiators on Monday entered yet another tension-filled week as they sought a belated post-Brexit trade deal that needs to be vetted and get legislative approval before a Jan.
1 cutoff date. With both sides refusing to blink on any of the three key outstanding issues, time is increasingly in short supply, especially since the EU approval process would need to take around four weeks.
The U.K. already left the EU on Jan. 31, but a transition period when EU rules apply to trade and other issues runs until the end of next month.
Both sides had hoped to get a trade deal by then to save hundreds of thousands of jobs that could be at stake if Brexit amounts to a brutal cliff edge divorce.