Breakthrough: UK and EU reach post-Brexit trade agreement

BRUSSELS (AP) — Just a week before the deadline, Britain and the European Union struck a free-trade deal Thursday that should avert economic chaos on New Year’s and bring a measure of certainty for businesses after years of Brexit turmoil.

Once ratified by both sides, the agreement will ensure Britain and the 27-nation bloc can continue to trade in goods without tariffs or quotas after the UK breaks fully free of the EU on January 1.

The relief was palpable on both sides that nine months of tense and often testy negotiations had finally produced a positive result.

The Christmas Eve breakthrough was double welcome amid a coronavirus pandemic that has left some 70,000 people in Britain dead and led the country’s neighbours to shut its borders to the UK over a new and seemingly more contagious variant of the virus spreading in England.

“We have taken back control of our laws and our destiny,” declared British Prime Minister Johnson, who posted a picture of himself on social media, beaming with thumbs up.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said “it was a long and winding road but we have got a good deal to show for it.”

“It is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides,” she said in Brussels.

The British and European parliaments both must hold votes on the agreement, though action by the latter may not happen until after the Jan. 1 breakup. Britain’s Parliament is set to vote on the deal on December 30.

It has been 4 1/2 years since Britons voted 52% to 48% to leave the EU and — in the words of the Brexiteers’ campaign slogan — “take back control” of the UK’s borders and laws.

It took more than three years of wrangling before Britain left the bloc’s political structures last January.

Disentangling the two sides’ economies and reconciling Britain’s desire for independence with the EU’s aim of preserving its unity took months longer.

The devil will be in the detail of the 2,000-page agreement, but both sides claimed the deal protects their cherished goals.

Britain said it gives the UK control over its money, borders, laws and fishing waters and ensures the country is “no longer in the lunar pull of the EU.”

Von der Leyen said the agreement protects the EU’s single market and contains safeguards to ensure Britain does not unfairly undercut the bloc’s standards.

Johnson’s relief at striking a deal contrasted with his earlier insistence that the UK would “prosper mightily” even if no deal were reached and the UK and the EU had to reinstate tariffs on each other’s goods.

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