1/ Ex-Trade negotiator& #39;s inside baseball thread on what he& #39;s talking about here, because it& #39;s not remotely intuitive.

The UK absolutely can refuse to extend the transition and slow-walk issues important to the EU. You can tell they can because they& #39;re doing it.

However... https://twitter.com/POLITICOEurope/status/1253661520292085766">https://twitter.com/POLITICOE...
2/ On Fisheries and the Level Playing Field, the EU-UK negotiators find themselves in a place that& #39;s actually really common for such talks: diametrically opposed political instructions.

The final outcome simply can& #39;t simultaneously reflect the mandates of both sides as written.
3/ Again, this is totally normal. Virtually every trade negotiation begins from this position on at least a handful of issues.

The negotiators are unable to resolve these issues on their own, and political leaders don& #39;t want to move until the last moment. Standard stuff.
4/ To continue making progress in the face of issues like this, negotiators do a couple of things:

a) They exchange a lot of information to make sure there& #39;s been no misunderstanding of the issues and to see if any unexpected "3rd option" shakes loose.
5/
b) They negotiate the language and provisions on all the parts of the relevant issue that aren& #39;t as controversial.

c) They work on & #39;hypothetical& #39; technical language to capture an outcome for if either side backs down. "If we WERE to do this, how would it look?"
6/ Ultimately, these three approaches almost never resolve a sensitive issue on their own. At the end of the day, political leaders well above the heads of the negotiators have to make a decision.

However, these three steps lay the groundwork for that call and its aftermath.
7/ Exchanging information and time spent negotiating lets the teams tell politicians with confidence that they& #39;ve tried and no magical negotiated solution which doesn& #39;t require a Minister making tough call is going to appear.
8/ Hammering out agreement on the non-controversial parts of the text isolates the outstanding issues, builds negotiating momentum, and encourages politicians to step in and resolve the final outstanding question that only they can fix.
9/ Drafting hypothetical legal versions of a difficult provisions gives both sides something they can circulate to their experts, agencies and stakeholders.

"Here& #39;s exactly what we& #39;d be signing up to" can sometimes prove less scary than a still abstract demand.
10/ All this work also saves a mountain of time if the politics does shift.

This is especially valuable in the UK-EU negotiations, where the clock is so famously ticking.

A UK refusal to engage substantively on LPF and Fish may be what Barnier is truly griping about here.
11/ Reminder & Shameless Plug: If you found this thread interesting and want to learn more about how trade negotiations work in practice and how Covid might be affecting them, my half an hour e-learning course is available for under a fiver. https://explaintrade.learnworlds.com/course?courseid=trade-negotiations-during-covid-19">https://explaintrade.learnworlds.com/course...
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