Talks will continue, but UK to prepare for no-deal, Johnson says
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Friday 16 Oct 2020
(Sharecast News) - Westminster will prepare against the risk of leaving the European Union at the start of 2021 without a deal, even as talks with Brussels continued over the coming week, the Prime Minister said.
Boris Johnson laid the blame for the former at the EU's feet, arguing that the bloc had refused to "negotiate seriously" over the past few months.
Yet London would always keep the door open in case the bloc came back with a "fundamental change of approach".
That followed a summit of EU leaders' held the day before after which UK officials said they were "surprised and disappointed" at the EU's negotiating stance.
A special bone of contention was the removal from a draft communique for the summit calling for an intensification of talks over the next two weeks.
However, in remarks made afterwards both the EU's chief trade negotiator, Michel Barnier, and European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, said negotiators would indeed travel to London during the following week with the aim of "intensifying" discussions.
According to Bloomberg, which cited a European official with knowledge of the matter, the UK's top trade representative, David Frost, was set to discuss matter with Barnier on Friday afternoon.
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