EU's Barnier heads for London for Brexit deal talks

[October 26, 2020]  BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier is due in London on Monday for talks with Britain to find out whether a deal on future relations can be struck to avoid widespread trade disruption at the end of the year.

The United Kingdom left the European Union in January but the two sides are trying to clinch a deal that would govern nearly a trillion dollars in annual trade before a transition period of informal membership ends on Dec. 31.

After a brief hiatus when London walked away from the negotiating table, both sides are now meeting daily to try to find common ground.

At stake is the smooth flow of cross-border trade as well as the harder-to-quantify damage that a chaotic exit would do to security information sharing and research and development cooperation.

Barnier and his EU team will be in London until Wednesday, after which talks will switch to Brussels and continue through the weekend, an EU spokesperson said.

EU diplomats were not expected to be briefed on progress in the latest batch of talks until later in the week.

Since talks restarted last week, British ministers have said real progress has been made and that there is a good chance of a deal. On Sunday, Ireland's deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said a deal to avoid tariffs and quotas was likely.

European Union's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier wears a protective face mask as he arrives at 1VS conference centre ahead of Brexit negotiations in London, Britain October 24, 2020. REUTERS/Henry Nicholls

After some progress on competition guarantees including state aid rules, the hardest issue remains fishing - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has insisted on taking back control over its waters while the EU wants access.

Although Britain insists it can prosper without a deal, British companies are facing a wall of bureaucracy that threatens chaos at the border if they want to sell into the world's biggest trading bloc when life after Brexit begins on Jan. 1.

(Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska and William James)

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