MNI SOURCES: EU-UK Near "Sordid Compromises"; Talks In Balance

Leaders of the two negotiating teams in EU-UK trade talks are stretching – even breaking – mandates from their political leaders to try to identify landing grounds in the three major sticking points to a deal, sources familiar with the discussions on both sides tell MNI.

But it remains unclear whether the work by the two sets of officials will be accepted by either London or Paris, as Prime Minister Boris Johnson weighs up domestic political risks inside his own party and President Emmanuel Macron, supported by his Dutch and Danish counterparts, also seek to resist yielding too much ground.

"Overall? I think it's good that negotiators are now into the hard pounding. That improves the chances," a UK source informed MNI.

"But even from within the room I have had one person fairly optimistic that we are now getting to the really sordid compromises, and another say gloomily that this will not fly at either end," he continued.

MNI hears that chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier thinks legal texts underpinning a deal are near closure on everything bar fisheries and level-playing field (LPF) terms, but the gaps remain sizeable in both these areas.

But an EU diplomat said the sticking points "are still not configured in a way that we can agree to them. On fish, specifically, there is still a substantial gap."

BRIDGING THE EU-27 DIVIDE

EU member states' sherpas are meeting today to try to bridge gaps between concessions under negotiation and the EU's red lines, MNI is informed. Their permanent representatives to Brussels are understood to be meeting Friday evening and over the weekend, if needed.

Reports overnight suggest the UK insists that a majority of the fish catch by value in British seas is returned but the EU's position remains under a third of this amount.

On LPF issues such as state aid, the EU is seen dropping its expectation of ex ante control – based on expected rather than actual outcomes - and could soften so-called evolution clauses that would require the UK to keep in step with future EU conditions. But non-regression terms to prevent the UK from resiling from current arrangements, as well as dispute resolution and retaliation remedies, are said to be essential for a number of member states to agree a deal.

This follows what is widely seen as French-led pressure yesterday for Barnier, expected to be back in London tomorrow for more talks, to provide greater transparency.

"[Member states], led by France, but including Dutch and Danes, revolted and said Barnier was going too far and they insisted on seeing and agreeing any texts before anything got agreed," the UK source told MNI.

The EU diplomat said: "we are millimetres from the bottom line of our mandate, and so we have to look at detail of what is being negotiated."

HIGH-STAKES POLITICS

The UK contact said: "We don't know where Johnson is. He engaged yesterday in some depth I am told. I don't know where Macron is either. There is a point at which he'd say "better no deal". But where?"

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who faces an election next spring, is seen as close to the French camp, notably on fisheries.

For the UK's part, the extent to which Johnson is prepared to sell a compromise deal with the EU to the harder Brexiteers in his party continues to remain a crucial question, the UK source added.