BREAKING: Talk of a 'No Deal' Brexit Grows as Deadline Looms

Photo: Reuters

LONDON/DUBLIN (Reuters) -Talk of a chaotic British split from the European Union grew on Tuesday with just three weeks left to break a deadlock in trade deal negotiations, with U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning that the two sides may have to accept "no deal".

The E.U.'s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told a meeting of the bloc's ministers that he believed a no-deal scenario at the end of the year was now more likely than an agreement on trade ties, an E.U. official and two diplomats told Reuters.

Deepening the gloom, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that unless there was a breakthrough "in the next day or two", E.U. leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday would have to discuss contingency plans for the economic disruption a rupture with no trade accord would bring.

Johnson will meet Ursula von der Leyen, president of the E.U.'s executive European Commission, for dinner in Brussels on Wednesday to try and close gaps their negotiators have struggled with for months.

But the language on both sides has hardened, and both have called on the other to compromise ahead of a meeting that is widely seen as a last throw of the dice.

In a sign of some movement in parallel talks on implementing an earlier treaty on Britain's withdrawal - not the terms of future trade - the two sides said they had reached agreement on arrangements for the Ireland-Northern Ireland border.

As a result, Britain said it would remove clauses in legislation that were in breach of the exit treaty.

The Irish government welcomed the deal, which avoids the need for a hard border on the only land frontier between the E.U. and the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland, a British province, in effect stays in the E.U. customs union and single market for goods when the rest of the United Kingdom leaves fully.

Read more from the original article:

https://www.investing.com/news...