Different accounts of the sticking points in the talks. To no-one's surprise, the Graun parrots (parts of) M Barnier's view:
Michel Barnier has said the main obstacle to a deal in the final “few hours” of the post-Brexit trade negotiation is whether Brussels will be able to hit British goods with tariffs if the government closes its fishing waters to EU fishing fleets in the future.
In the future! For all time!
A rather different and enlarged take in the Times (subscription) though, adding a bit:
Boris Johnson had called on the European Union last night to drop its demands to allow Brussels to subsidise industries across Europe while denying the UK the same rights. Mr Barnier has called for Brussels aid to be exempt from any future subsidy control regime as part of a Brexit deal....The issue has been brought into focus by a €750 billion EU pandemic recovery fund and other payments that will be used to directly support many industries in countries that are significant rivals with the UK, such as France, Italy and Spain. While similar forms of [UK?] government aid to industry would be subjected to subsidy control scrutiny, EU payments in the next Brussels budget would be excluded.
What a marvellous Continental notion of 'level'! The UK cannot improve its playing field because that would be unfair (because the EU rules would prevent it following suit). But the EU is proposing to suspend its rules to allow it to improve its own playing fields with subsidies. So what's the problem? None -- except the EU wants [now? still?] to be more than level, and to subsidise while the UK cannot!
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