Barnier pledges to work ‘night and day’ to get deal with UK

Bloomberg

The European Union’s (EU) chief negotiator for a post-Brexit trade deal said he’ll work “night and day” for an agreement, though the UK‘s departure will have “innumerable and lasting consequences.”
There is a risk the two sides will fail to get a trade agreement by the December 31 deadline and the UK crashes out of the bloc, Michel Barnier said in a Journal du Dimanche interview.
“If necessary, we will work day and night to avoid it,” he said.
Barnier warned this month that the timetable for the talks is “extremely challenging” and it will not be possible to agree on every aspect of a deal in less than a year.
The UK has sent mixed messages in recent days. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said that getting a trade deal with the EU will be the top priority after it leaves the bloc at the end of the month. Yet he has also warned he doesn’t want a deal in which the UK economy stays close to the EU or takes rules from the bloc.
Barnier said he won’t allow the EU’s single market to be weakened, or the UK to become an unfair competitor.
“What’s at stake is not having a neighbour on our doorstep that would become champion of regulatory competition on every level,” Barnier told the French newspaper. “We are telling the British that the opening of our market will be proportional to their will to respect the rules of the game.”
UK to mint Brexit coins
The UK will release about 3 million Brexit coins on Friday when the country officially leaves the European Union, marking the third version of the commemorative currency after the departure date was twice delayed.
The seven-sided, 50 pence (65 US cents) coin and are embossed with the January 31 date and “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations,” the Treasury said in a statement.
Last year, then Chancellor Philip Hammond planned a batch to commemorate the original March 29 Brexit day. When the UK’s exit was delayed, his successor Sajid Javid produced about a million of the coins stamped with the October 31 departure date. But those had to be melted down when Brexit was put off once more.
“Leaving the European Union is a turning point in our history and this coin marks the beginning of this new chapter,” Javid said in the statement. A further 7 million will enter circulation later this year.
The UK has used the 50 pence coin to celebrate national achievements ranging from the 2012 London Olympics to the work of children’s author Beatrix Potter. The Royal Mint struck coins when the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, the single market in 1992 and held the rotating EU presidency in 1998.

EU holds summit on Feb 20 to discuss $1.1trillion budget
Bloomberg

European Union leaders will hold a special summit on February 20, with an aim of reaching a breakthrough in stalled negotiations over the bloc’s trillion-euro ($1.1 trillion) budget that are being made extra onerous by the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
“Any postponement would create serious practical and political problems,” European Council President Charles Michel said in his invitation letter published on January 25. “I am fully aware that these negotiations are among the most difficult ones we have to face.”
The seven-year budget is a cornerstone of EU policy that lets farmers compete against imports from the developing world, helps poorer states catch up with the richer ones and underpins projects that bind the union together.
But agreeing on the amount of cash and how to spend it is a regular source of tension between the net contributors and those who get more than they put in.
The UK was a net contributor and its departure leaves a budget hole that needs to be plugged by either cutting spending or making others cough up more.