1/ Michel Barnier offered a downbeat assessment of the post-Brexit trade talks to the EU Parliament's Conference of Presidents today. Barnier repeated, almost word-for-word, the letter he sent to opposition MPs in Westminster – confirmed the EU's support for a two-year delay.
2/ Barnier told senior MEPs that regulatory alignment – the level-playing field – and fisheries remain the most 'divisive issues', a source in the room tells me. More interestingly, Barnier seems confident that a fisheries agreement is the easier of the two to do a deal on.
3/ The reluctance of David Frost, the PM's chief negotiator, to engage on the EU's level-playing field proposals has led Barnier to believe the UK is ready to accept no deal and trade tariffs in order to have full regulatory independence, the source adds.
4/ Even without a trade deal, an EU-UK fisheries agreement will most likely to struck by the two sides anyway. Could this be Barnier's first move to remove the 'inextricable' link between trade and fisheries in any future agreement to guarantee access to British waters?
5/ Barnier concluded his address to MEPs with his usual warning that the UK must continue to respect the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement and implement the Northern Ireland Protocol in full. MEPs said they would table a Parliament resolution to offer Barnier their full support.
