UK and EU avert chaos and agree on trade deal

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

The deal, reached after nine tough months of negotiations, would 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 New Year’s Day.

“The deal is done,” declared British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who posted a picture of himself, beaming with thumbs up.

Relief was palpable on all sides. “It was a long and winding road but we have got a good deal to show for it,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. “It is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides.”

The British and European parliaments both must hold votes on the agreement, though the latter may not happen until after the UK leaves the EU’s economic embrace.

Tense and often testy negotiations gradually whittled differences between the two sides down to three key issues: fair-competition rules, mechanisms for resolving future disputes, and fishing rights. The rights of EU boats to fish British waters was the last obstacle to be resolved. However, key aspects of the future relationship between the two sides remain unsettled.

Johnson had insisted 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. But his government acknowledged that a chaotic exit was likely to bring gridlock at Britain’s ports, temporary shortages of some goods and price increases for staple foods. The turmoil could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.

The EU has long feared that Britain would undercut the bloc’s social, environmental and state aid rules after Brexit and gain a competitive advantage over the EU. Britain denies planning to institute weaker standards but said that having to continue following EU regulations would undermine its sovereignty.

A compromise was eventually reached on the tricky “level playing field” issues.

The economically minor but hugely symbolic issue of fishing rights came to be the final sticking point, with maritime EU nations seeking to retain access to UK waters where they have long fished and Britain insisting it must exercise control as an “independent coastal state.”

It has been 4 1/2 years since Britons voted 52-48 percent to leave the EU and “take back control” of UK’s borders and laws.