EU looking at Canada-style trade agreement with post-Brexit UK
The EU says Brexit leaves it ‘no alternative’ but to use the Canada model, despite Theresa May rejecting such a deal in September
Brussels — The EU announced on Friday that it will work on a post-Brexit, free-trade agreement modeled on the bloc’s deal with Canada, saying Britain’s insistence on leaving the single market and customs union left no alternative. The bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said that once Britain’s conditions — which also include ending its participation in European freedom of movement — were applied, all that was left was a "free trade agreement on the Canada model". "It’s not us, it’s our British friends who are giving these red lines which close certain doors. So it will be on this model that we will work," Barnier said after a hard-won agreement on divorce terms that was sealed in Brussels. The remarks will come as a blow to London, after Prime Minister Theresa May rejected a Canada-style deal during a key speech in Florence in September, instead calling for the two sides to design a new "ambitious economic partnership". The hard-fought free trade agreement between the EU ...
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