Brexit Trade Deal Reached Between U.K. and E.U.

If approved, the agreement will take effect on Jan. 1, four and a half years after a narrow majority of people in Britain voted to leave the European Union, plunging the country into rancorous debate and political divisions.

For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who won a landslide election victory in 2019 vowing to “get Brexit done,” the deal allows him to fulfill that promise. He sounded triumphant when speaking shortly after the announcement. “We’ve taken back control of our laws and our destiny,” he said.

“For the first time since 1973,” Mr. Johnson said, “we will be an independent coastal nation with full control of our own waters.”

But to get there, the prime minister had to make significant concessions, especially on rules that cover state aid to businesses and European rights to continue fishing in those waters.

Britain will subscribe to “level playing field” principles, hewing closely to European Union standards and regulations for the foreseeable future. Should disputes arise, they will be settled through arbitration rather than the automatic penalties that the European Union had been demanding.

The European Court of Justice, anathema to Brexiteers, will have no role.

In fishing, the last issue to be resolved and the most politically sensitive, the sides agreed on a 25 percent reduction in quotas for European Union nations to be phased in over five and a half years. Britain had been pressing for a three-year transition, the bloc for 14 years.

The agreement does not cover services, such as London’s mighty finance sector, which account for about 80 percent of the British economy.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/world/europe/brexit-trade-deal-uk-eu.html