Michel Barnier and David Frost are giving their negotiations what Barnier called "a final push", while Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen are reported to be in regular contact in an effort to find agreement. But with the two sides still a distance apart on fisheries and other issues still unresolved, it is now unlikely that they will reach a deal before Christmas.
Barnier told EU ambassadors on Tuesday that Britain’s latest offer on fish is less generous than it appears and that his proposal that European boats should sacrifice 25 per cent of their catch in British waters over seven years is final. Britain’s proposal for the EU to give up 30-35 per cent over five years does not include pelagic fish such as herring, mackerel and whiting, so it is effectively a demand for European boats to sacrifice 60 per cent of the value of what they catch in British waters.
Britain is also seeking to water down level playing field commitments on fair competition, to make them less constraining, less binding and less subject to a dispute resolution mechanism.
With coastal states led by France and Denmark holding firm on fisheries and rejecting what Britain views as a generous offer, the gap is probably too wide to be bridged by Wednesday evening, the deadline member states have given for a deal to be agreed in time to come into force on January 1st.
It is already too late for the European Parliament to ratify a deal before the end of the year, although MPs would return to Westminster to endorse it on December 30th. If the European Council agrees on December 31st to apply the agreement provisionally pending MEPs' approval, that application would probably not come into force until a week later.
Hiatus hope
A crisis in the talks on Wednesday followed by a brief hiatus over Christmas could offer Johnson three advantages: there is a chance that he will secure a slightly better deal after Christmas; he will have proven to Brexiteers his willingness to go down to the wire; and a late deal would give his own MPs less time to consider the details of an agreement.
Such a crisis could also see Von der Leyen and other EU leaders exert pressure on the coastal states to compromise on fish for the sake of the overall value of a trade deal and in view of the risk of a bitter falling out with Britain in the event of no deal.
But there are risks for Johnson in holding out, and any deal he can get after Christmas is unlikely to be much better than the EU's current offer – perhaps 28 per cent of fish over six years rather than 25 per cent over seven. And if the coastal states refuse to budge, other member states are likely to show them the same solidarity they showed to Ireland in the first stage of the Brexit negotiations, taking the side of their partners within the EU against a third country outside it.