UK, EU reach post-Brexit trade deal after months of arguments
Dec 24, 2020
London [UK], December 24 : With just a few days to spare for the Brexit transition period to end, the British Government on Thursday announced that it has finally struck a post-Brexit trade agreement with the European Union (EU).
"Deal is done," read a statement from Downing Street. "Everything that the British public was promised during the 2016 referendum and in the general election last year is delivered by this deal."
According to CNN report, the EU leaders, the European Parliament (EP), and the UK government will all need to now approve the agreement on their own.
After the legal text of the agreement is translated, reviewed and approved by all the EU member states, it will go back to the European Parliament where the Members of the European Parliament (MEP) will vote for its passage.
As the EP has said that it is too late to hold an emergency voting session before the Brexit transition period ends on December 31, they plan to apply the EU-UK agreement "provisionally," with MEPs reconvening formally to ratify the deal in the New Year, the CNN said.
For months, Britain and the European Union had been in a deadlock as the two sides were "unable to reach agreement in areas such as fishing quotas, how the UK would use state aid to support British businesses post-Brexit, and legal oversight of any deal struck".
The UK withdrew from the EU on January 31. The two have agreed to a transition period until December 31 to negotiate the bilateral trade terms post-Brexit. The items they so far disagree on are regulations on fisheries and state aid.
