Monday's phone call between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen, during which they agreed to meet in Brussels in the coming days, followed a downbeat briefing to EU ambassadors from Michel Barnier. His report that no progress had been made on Sunday was echoed by a Downing Street spokesperson on Monday night, who said that the talks were now in the same place as they were on Friday and both sides warned that agreement was far from certain.
But the two leaders’ decision to meet in person is a sign that they both believe success is possible despite “remaining, significant differences” on the level playing field, governance and fisheries. And despite the discouraging noises from the two negotiating teams, each diplomatic moment in the talks since last Friday has moved the process onwards.
The chief negotiators' decision to call in their political principals on Friday led to Johnson and Von der Leyen's first call on Saturday. This produced a statement renewing their faith in the talks and giving them some impetus.
Sunday’s talks may not have broken the deadlock on any of the outstanding issues, but that day saw the EU effectively add two days to the talks by choosing to ignore for the time being Westminster’s debate on treaty-breaking clauses in the Internal Market Bill. On Monday, Britain said it would drop those clauses if the joint committee on implementing the Northern Ireland protocol found “satisfactory solutions”, adding that the committee was making excellent progress.
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Providing a spur
A face-to-face meeting between political leaders can provide a spur to negotiators to find creative answers to hitherto insoluble problems. An agreement will require an intricate arrangement on EU access to British fishing waters, robust level playing field conditions that take into account British sensitivities on sovereignty, and a fair, effective means of enforcing the agreement.
Von der Leyen can persuade EU leaders to budge here or there from their agreed position, but the most important decision over the next 48 hours will be Johnson’s.
When he met Leo Varadkar in Cheshire a year ago under similarly inauspicious circumstances, he made a bold move that cut through the knot entangling the negotiations and made the withdrawal agreement possible. The question is, after the setbacks and failures that have marked his past 12 months in office, does he have the confidence and the imagination to do it again?