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Brexit: How are the UK's talks with the EU going? Brexit: What have been the sticking points?
(7 days later)
Despite predictions that talks on a Brexit deal are on the brink of collapse, they struggle on. A revised Brexit deal, acceptable to both UK and EU negotiators, remains elusive.
There is, however, a limit to what technical discussions in Brussels can achieve. Only a few people know exactly what has been discussed behind closed doors, and the legal text of any proposed agreement has not been made public.
This is about politics now - and time to get anything done and dusted by the end of the month has all but run out. But it's worth bearing in mind that most of the deal hammered out by Theresa May's government - the withdrawal agreement and the accompanying political declaration - would remain in place.
After a meeting between Boris Johnson and the Irish PM Leo Varadkar, a joint statement said the two men could still "see a pathway to a possible deal". But they highlighted two major challenges: customs and consent. The main changes Boris Johnson's government wants to see concern the Irish border, and the type of relationship it wishes the UK to have with the EU in the future.
So, where have we got to? Customs
The UK wants to rewrite the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland that forms part of the proposed withdrawal agreement - the terms of divorce negotiated by the EU and the UK government under Theresa May. All sides have ruled out customs checks at the land border in Ireland (between Northern Ireland and the Republic), and Mr Johnson's suggestion that checks could take place at "designated locations" away from the border was rejected by the EU.
First and foremost, the UK now insists the backstop - the legal guarantee to avoid the return of a hard border in Ireland - has to go. That means there would have to be some customs checks within the UK instead, at ports along the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That's a big UK concession.
The UK plan to replace it would leave Northern Ireland inside the EU single market for all agricultural and industrial goods but outside the EU customs union. But Mr Johnson also insists that Northern Ireland has to leave the EU customs union, along with the rest of the UK, to allow it to take advantage of any future trade deals the government manages to negotiate.
In effect that means a "light-touch" north-south border for customs (between Ireland and Northern Ireland) and an east-west border for regulations on goods (between Great Britain and Northern Ireland). The suggested compromise is that the legal customs border between the UK and the EU would be at the land border in Ireland. But the practical border, where checks would actually take place, would be in the Irish Sea.
Many businesses in Northern Ireland have already criticised the UK proposal as the worst of both worlds. Diplomats say that means Northern Ireland would remain legally in the UK customs territory but it would apply EU customs processes on goods arriving from Great Britain. There would be exemptions, including on personal items and other goods, to be agreed at a later date by the UK and the EU.
And the EU says it sympathises with companies on both sides of the Irish border that would suddenly face a far more complex and costly business environment to operate in. So it's a dual customs system, which has no obvious parallel anywhere else in the world, and it raises plenty of technical and legal issues which will take some time to pin down.
But it still takes a more nuanced view, because it wants a deal done and doesn't want to be blamed if the whole process collapses in acrimony. Consent
EU negotiators also appreciate the fact the UK has moved on the issue of regulations and has now proposed setting up a single zone, following EU rules, on the island of Ireland. That means checks on goods - especially food and agricultural produce - would have to take place within the UK (between Britain and Northern Ireland) instead. There's also the issue of political consent in Northern Ireland.
But the EU has identified several other sticking points and concluded the UK proposal as currently drafted cannot form the basis for an overall deal. Both sides agree that any new economic status for Northern Ireland, which sets it apart from the rest of the country, needs to win democratic approval.
What about customs? But the EU won't accept anything that appears to give a veto to one party in Northern Ireland, in this case the government's allies in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). That, in the EU's view, would mean the entire proposed settlement on the Irish border could be unexpectedly torn up with nothing to replace it.
This is the biggest problem. For its part, the DUP has been arguing that the Good Friday agreement, which forms the basis of the Northern Ireland peace process, provides for a dual majority (in other words a majority among both unionist and nationalist representatives) on controversial issues in the Northern Ireland assembly.
The UK wants customs checks to take place away from the Irish land border, using technology, exemptions for small businesses and trusted trader schemes. Others in Northern Ireland argue that if a dual majority is needed, then the prospect of Northern Ireland leaving the EU should also be subject to similar dual consent.
But that means it wants the EU to agree in advance, as part of a formal treaty commitment, there will never be any customs checks at the border itself, even before the EU knows exactly how the UK's customs proposals are going to work. Diplomats say the latest draft agreement outlines a plan which would give the Northern Ireland Assembly a consent vote four years after the Brexit transition period ends in 2020.
The EU isn't willing to do that. If it voted to continue the new arrangements by a simple majority, another vote would be held four years later. If the vote was carried with a dual majority it would be held again eight years later.
It would also mean an international agreement known as the Common Transit Convention (CTC) would have to be renegotiated to avoid the need for documents to be checked at or near the border. Diplomats say that if the Assembly voted to end the arrangements, the UK and the EU would have two years to negotiate a new method to avoid a hard border.
And it would mean the EU would have to make special dispensations for the UK in Northern Ireland, exempting it from some of the customs rules set down in EU law. This, the EU believes, would threaten the integrity of its own economic structures - the customs union and the single market. All of this would replace the so-called backstop - the proposed guarantee to avoid a hard border in Ireland under all circumstances.
The UK is urging the EU to think more creatively. But overall, the EU still doesn't see how the Irish border can remain as open as it is now - certainly in the short and medium term - if Northern Ireland is no longer in the same customs territory. But so far, the DUP has made it pretty clear that it cannot accept the proposals as they stand.
And it argues the UK plan relies on technology not yet deployed at any other border in the world. Future Relations
What about consent? The UK has submitted a new draft of the political declaration on the future relationship. Again, the text has not been made public, but Mr Johnson has made it clear that he wants a looser economic relationship with the EU in the future than Mrs May was seeking.
This is the other big problem. Diplomats say the political declaration will point towards a free trade agreement between the UK and the EU with zero tariffs or quotas, but one which is embedded in a framework for economic competition that is "fair".
The UK says Northern Ireland cannot be expected to accept rules and regulations over which it has no say, without first giving its consent. One of the key phrases to watch out for here is the "level playing field" - the degree to which the UK will agree to stick closely to EU regulations on things like social and environmental policies.
But the method it proposes to gain that consent would - in effect - give one party, its allies in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), a veto over whether to create an all-Ireland regulation zone, and then another veto every four years on whether such a zone should remain in place. Mr Johnson wants to make fewer level playing field guarantees, and the EU fears that could mean he will seek to undercut EU regulation in the future to gain a competitive advantage.
It's not clear whether the issue of consent could also extend in the future to any new customs rules - but the basis of the Good Friday Agreement that helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland was no single party could wield a veto over any aspect of the deal. And that in turn has made a number of EU countries even more determined that any solution for the Irish border is legally watertight and fully thought through, before they sign up to any amended Brexit deal.
So, if a method could be found to seek the regular consent of all parties in Ireland, for post-Brexit trading arrangements, that could provide a way forward. VAT
Although neither side would seek to call it this, it would be a form of time-limited backstop. In any complex negotiation, there is nearly always an issue bubbling under the surface which emerges as a last-minute hitch.
What about the rest of the withdrawal agreement? This time it is VAT, and how to prevent fraud involving goods crossing any new border arrangement.
The rest of the withdrawal agreement negotiated by the EU and Theresa May's government - including the financial settlement and the transition period, things heavily criticised in the past by Boris Johnson - would remain in place. Time
So, even if a last-minute deal could be done - which looks unlikely before the end of October - the prime minister would have to accept parts of an agreement he has rejected in the past. On all of these issues, time is against the negotiators and their political masters. Mr Johnson still says he is determined to leave the EU on 31 October.
What next? But if the House of Commons has not voted in favour either of a deal or of leaving with no deal by 19 October, then UK law says he must seek an extension to the Brexit process.
The next few days are obviously critical. The EU has said it will not negotiate directly with Mr Johnson during the summit, which begins on Thursday.
Neither side wants to be seen as the one to walk away from a process of talks, not least because they know at some stage they would need to start talking again. But the next few days are obviously crucial.
Sometimes in complex negotiations deals emerge at the 11th hour in the most unexpected of places. Brexit explained
"I think the deal is possible," the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said, "very difficult but possible." Brexit - British exit - refers to the UK leaving the EU. A public vote was held in June 2016, to decide whether the UK should leave or remain.
But politics on all sides, and particularly in the UK, seems to have brought this process very close to an impasse. More news explainers
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