Ursula von der Leyen and Boris Johnson met in Downing Street yesterday for preliminary talks on Brexit – official trade talks cannot begin until the UK has left the EU, and are unlikely to start before March. Von der Leyen told the press today that a comprehensive trade deal within the extremely short deadline would be ‘impossible’. However, this is not necessarily a complete shutdown of expectations. The Commissioner said that this means that the UK and EU – whom she insists will remain ‘best of friends’ – would operate not on a case of ‘all or nothing’, but on a list of priorities. This should mean that the attitude will be that the UK will not find itself entirely without a deal by the deadline, but that much will still be unfinished.
She said, ‘We will go as far as we can, but the truth is that our partnership cannot and will not be the same as before and it cannot and will not be as close as before, because with every choice comes a consequence [and] with every decision comes a trade-off.’
European business confidence dropped further than expected yesterday, while consumer confidence also remained in the negative. The signals are certainly mixed so far, with service sentiment unexpectedly improving from 9.2 to 11.5, but industrial sentiment dropping more than forecast.
