BREXIT: Need For Interim Deal Broadly Accepted - UK Hammond

By Tara Oakes

     BRUSSELS (MNI) - There is "broad acceptance" in the UK government on the

need to strike a transition deal in Brexit talks, UK Chancellor Philip Hammond

said Friday.

     Hammond's comments to the BBC are a sign of emerging cabinet agreement that

an interim period should smooth the way for new arrangements with the EU to be

set up to avoid plunging into a "cliff edge" scenario.

     "There is a widespread understanding that...some of those new arrangements

will take time to put into place," Hammond said on the Today programme.

     "We will have a transitional period which is dictated by the practical,

technical necessities of implementing these new systems," he added.

     This interim should last a maximum of three years, Hammond added.

     "There is a broad consensus that this process has to be completed by the

next general election in 2022," he said.

     Hammond insisted that the UK would definitively leave the EU Single Market

and the Customs Union on the day is leaves the bloc, scheduled for March 2019.

     But, he added, he hoped for a deal which would see much remaining "similar"

the day after Brexit officially hits.

     "I would hope that we would be able to agree a transition which means that

in the immediate aftermath of leaving the European Union goods will continue to

flow across the border between the UK and the EU in much the same way as they do

now," he said, implying that the transition would maintain free movement of

goods.

     Hammond acknowledged that this would also entail free movement of people

during this time, adding that new migration controls would need to be set up.

     "In the transition period, European nationals will still be able to come

into the UK but they will have to register," he told the radio station.

     Asked about the role of the European Court of Justice - whose jurisdiction

in the UK after Brexit has been rejected by the government -- Hammond indicated

that he would be in favour of an EFTA-style court as used by Norway and Iceland

to arbitrate with the EU.

     "Some of our non-EU European neighbours already operate with close

association with the EU through the EEA and they have their own special

tribunal," Hammond said.

     "It's one option -- but we haven't begun to discuss that yet," he added.

--MNI Brussels Bureau; +44 203-865-3851; email: tara.oakes@marketnews.com

--MNI Paris Bureau; tel: +33 1-42-71-55-41; email: jack.duffy@marketnews.com

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