Thread by @jonworth

So the European Parliament has today decided to *not* set the date when it will approve the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA)

What does this mean?

Provisional Application of TCA runs until end of April

Before then there are 2 EP plenaries
24-25 March
26-29 April

Effectively means the later one will be when approval (or not) happens

The Provisional Application deadline could, in theory, be extended further. But that needs the approval of the UK in the Partnership Council...

I suppose it's now not impossible it'd be extended further so as to avoid a major bust up in April?

I still can't see the European Parliament not agreeing the TCA. So the question is whether they are reassured enough to do that in April, or annoyed enough to push the deadline further into the future

And UK side, if a request to extend were to come, what would the UK say?

The next few weeks are hence crucial - if the UK Government were behaving sensibly it would try to calm all of this down, and reassure the European Parliament about its intentions

But UK Government behaving sensibly...? We can but hope!

The focus in the EP now ought to be in wide ranging and systematic scrutiny - is there a way to make the intersection of TCA and NI Protocol work for both the EU and the UK? Is there a way to decrease tensions in Northern Ireland in particular?

Played well this could be an excellent opportunity for the European Parliament to show it takes people's real life concerns seriously, and does proper scrutiny

Do this badly and tensions increase and we're in a worse spot end of April than we are now...

The next 6 weeks will be interesting!

/ends