BRUSSELS: Long-awaited trade talks between the European Union and Britain kicked off on Monday amid deep tensions over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s threat to walk away from the negotiations if not enough progress is made within four months.

Britain left the EU on Jan 31, the first country ever to do so. Mondays talks mark the start of a process aimed at securing new commercial, fishing and other ties with the worlds biggest trading bloc.

All that has to be concluded by the end of this year, according to Johnson.

The chief negotiators the EU’s Michel Barnier and the UK’s David Frost held an initial meeting in Brussels on Monday before scores of officials from the two sides got down to business.

Barnier has warned the UK said that no deal can provide the frictionless trade that membership provided.

The first round of talks will run until Thursday and will center mostly on negotiating formalities, although some discussion on the substance of an agreement is expected. The teams are expected to meet every two to three weeks, alternating between Brussels and London. Half a dozen or so rounds of negotiations are expected to take place by the end of June.

That will be a crucial moment in the discussions. Under the divorce agreement signed last year, Britain must decide by June 30 whether it wants to extend a transition period that is aimed at smoothing its departure from the bloc, of which it was a member of for 47 years.

Johnson has insisted that he won’t agree to extend the transition period beyond the end of this year. That effectively means that if the two sides can’t strike a deal this year, Britain and the EU will then trade on terms outlined by the World Trade Organisation, which would see tariffs and other restrictions imposed.

During the transition, Britain effectively remains within the EU’s economic orbit, including its single market for trade in goods and services, even though it has left its political institutions.

The EU has said it won’t be pressured by Johnson’s demand to wrap up a trade deal by the end of this year and is keen to ensure that his government does not secure an agreement that could give Britain a competitive advantage. EU negotiators want Britain to sign up to a swathe of EU regulations on environmental standards, workers’ rights and state aid.

Britain says it won’t lower its standards in those areas, but insists it won’t agree to mirror EU rules. London’s negotiating mandate states: we will not agree to any obligations for our laws to be aligned with the EU’s, or for the EU’s institutions, including the Court of Justice, to have any jurisdiction in the UK.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2020