Barnier Pledges to Work ‘Night and Day’ to Get Deal With U.K.

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The European Union’s chief negotiator for a post-Brexit trade deal said he’ll work “night and day” for an agreement, though the U.K.‘s departure will have “innumerable and lasting consequences.”

There is a risk the two sides will fail to get a trade agreement by the Dec. 31 deadline and the U.K. 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 U.K. has sent mixed messages in recent days. Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid said Wednesday 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 U.K. 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 U.K. to become an unfair competitor.

“What’s at stake is not having a neighbor 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.”

To contact the reporter on this story: William Horobin in Paris at whorobin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Fergal O'Brien at fobrien@bloomberg.net, Tony Czuczka

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