Boris Johnson offers to accept EU tariffs on certain goods to secure trade deal
In an effort to break the Brexit deadlock between the UK and EU and negotiate a trade deal, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is willing to accept European Union tariffs on some UK goods.
8 June 2020
4 minute read
By: According to reporting in the Daily Mail and Reuters, multiple sources say that Britain’s chief Brexit negotiator, David Frost, has made a new offer.
The offer stipulates that the UK would accept tariffs on a small number of goods in return for the EU dropping its demand that Britain would continue to follow EU rules.
On 5 June, EU and UK negotiators said that they made very little progress in their latest round of talks about a free trade agreement, with just weeks left to extend the year-end deadline to reach a deal.
The Daily Mail reports that an earlier threat to walk away from trade talks if no progress was made has been relaxed due to the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
"We are not up for a long negotiation over the next months well into the autumn where nobody knows what is going to happen. October is too late for us to conclude this", a UK source was quoted by the paper as saying.
The idea of imposing tariffs was not immediately welcomed by Brussels, according to the Daily Mail.
Britain officially left the EU in January. As it stands now, the relationship between the two economic and political blocs is governed by a transition agreement that maintains the previous rules and regulations while the parties negotiate new terms.
