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The British minister responsible for Brexit "thinks" to reach an agreement with Brussels by November 21 in negotiations on the exit of the UK from the EU, according to a letter to parliamentarians released Wednesday. "I will be happy to be heard by the committee when an agreement is finalized, and I think that the date of 21 November could be appropriate", wrote Dominic Raab in a letter to the deputies of the Brexit parliamentary committee, in response to an invitation to speak to them that day.
End of negotiations in view
"The end (of negotiations) is now in sight, we can make our way through the remaining obstacles". His optimism is shared by his colleague Jeremy Hunt, the Minister of Foreign Affairs. "It is quite possible that we have made enough progress by then," he said in a speech Wednesday evening in London, during which he considered "encouraging" the current state of negotiations.
A spokeswoman for the Prime Minister, Theresa May, however, was unable to confirm the date of November 21. "We hope to reach an agreement as soon as possible. "
In Paris, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Simon Coveney, the French and Irish Foreign Ministers, said the negotiations were at their "moment of truth". "If an agreement is reached during the month of November, the negotiating teams must find a solution next week, or not far," judged the head of Irish diplomacy.
Ireland at the center of concerns
His French counterpart, Jean-Yves le Drian, demanded "UK guarantees" on the question of the Irish border. But a European source told AFP that "the technical discussions that have resumed have led nowhere".
Raab will travel to the British province of Northern Ireland on Friday for a "fact-finding mission" during which he will meet representatives of companies and local elected officials, according to his ministry. How to prevent the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, member of the EU, remains a major point of disagreement in the negotiations between London and Brussels, while "95% of the withdrawal agreement is now settled"says Dominic Raab.
European leaders, who had come up with the idea of an extraordinary summit in mid-November to close negotiations and seal the deal, warned that it would not happen in the absence of progress on the record. Irish.
The EU proposed to keep Northern Ireland in the single market and the European Customs Union if no other solution was found by December 2020, at the end of the transition period that should follow Brexit, scheduled for March 29, 2019. This scenario of "Backstop" (or safety net) is rejected by Theresa May, who has proposed that a customs agreement linking the EU to the whole of the UK, not just Northern Ireland, can be established until signature a broader free trade agreement.
(with agencies)
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