Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker announce agreement after last-minute talks, paving the way for trade discussions

Theresa May has heralded an agreement with the European commission to move the Brexit negotiations on to trade discussions as “hard won” and “in the interests of all” after days of intense bargaining at home and abroad.

The British prime minister and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, announced the deal at a press conference early on Friday after May and David Davis, the UK’s Brexit secretary, travelled to Brussels for last-minute talks.

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Juncker said “sufficient progress” had been made in the first phase of negotiations to allow movement to the next phase, while May said that the agreement ensured there would be “no hard border” in Ireland.

But the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, said soon afterwards that after months of negotiations over the opening issues of citizens’ rights, the divorce bill and the Irish border, the toughest talks were to come.

“While being satisfied with today’s agreement, which is obviously the personal success of Prime Minister Theresa May, let us remember that the most difficult challenge is still ahead,” Tusk said.

“We all know that breaking up is hard. But breaking up and building a new relation is much harder.

“Since the Brexit referendum, a year and a half has passed. So much time has been devoted to the easier part of the task. And now, to negotiate a transition arrangement and the framework for our future relationship, we have de facto less than a year.”

After the joint text is signed off by leaders of the EU member states at a summit next week, the new phase of Brexit negotiations will begin on a future relationship, including the terms of a transition period to cushion Britain’s exit from the bloc in 2019.

Tusk said that during a two-year transition period requested by May, the UK would have to accept EU law, including new law, its budgetary commitments and the continued jurisdiction of the European court of justice while having no role in the bloc’s decision-making.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Theresa May and Donald Tusk in Brussels on Friday. Photograph: Zuma/Rex/Shutterstock

“All of what I have said seems to be the only reasonable solution, and it is in the interest of all our citizens that it is agreed as soon as possible,” Tusk said. “This is why I will ask the EU leaders to mandate our negotiator to start these talks immediately.”

Tusk also said that as yet it was unclear to the EU what the UK wanted out of the future relationship once it left the single market and customs union. “So far, we have heard a number of various ideas,” he said.

May said she looked forward to the discussions. “Getting to this point has required give and take on both sides,” the prime minister said. “And I believe that the joint report being published is in the best interests of the whole of the UK.

“I very much welcome the prospect of moving ahead to the next phase, to talk about trade and security and to discuss the positive and ambitious future relationship that is in all of our interests.”

The issue of avoiding a hard border with Ireland had emerged as the biggest stumbling block in recent weeks to moving the talks on from the opening issues, which also include citizens’ rights and the divorce bill.

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A new text agreed late into the night on Thursday with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) on avoiding a hard border was said to be a “significant improvement” by the prime minister, ensuring the continued “constitutional and economic integrity of the UK” after Brexit.

The DUP torpedoed the British government’s plans last Monday when an original agreement with Brussels on moving talks on was leaked.

It was concerned that the wording then suggested a customs border could materialise between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK due to a commitment to keep the province aligned with the EU.

The new text offers guarantees that Northern Ireland will have regulatory alignment with the Republic, but that in such an event no obstacles to trade will emerge between Northern Ireland and the UK.

Earlier this week, Davis had suggested this would be undertaken by continued alignment of the whole of the UK with the EU.

The British government is seeking a trade deal with the bloc that makes any sort of hard border with Ireland unnecessary, the text says.

“Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland,” it adds.

“In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support north-south cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 agreement ...

“The United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 agreement, the Northern Ireland executive and assembly agree that distinct arrangements are appropriate for Northern Ireland.

“In all circumstances, the United Kingdom will continue to ensure the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the United Kingdom internal market.”

An Irish government spokesman said it was “a very good day for Ireland, north and south”. “On the border, we have achieved the most important commitment,” the spokesman added. “We always welcomed the UK aspiration to avoid a hard border, but we held out this time for detail on how that could be achieved.

“And for the first time now we have that, in terms of the stated commitment to maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and customs union which, now or in the future, support north-south cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the Good Friday agreement.”

Juncker said May had informed him that the joint text had the support of her wider government. “On that basis I believe we have now made the breakthrough we needed,” he said.



“Today’s result is of course a compromise. It is the result of a long and intense discussion between the commission negotiators and those of the UK. As in any negotiation, both sides have to listen to each other, adjust their position and show a willingness to compromise.

“This was a difficult negotiation for the European Union as well as for the United Kingdom.”

On citizens’ rights, both sides said the agreement would ensure that EU nationals in the UK would retain the same rights after Brexit as they enjoyed before.

May said the agreement on the estimated €60bn (£52bn) financial settlement was “fair to the British taxpayer” but would ensure the UK could spend more money on its own priorities such a “housing, schools and the NHS”.

Theresa May arrives in Brussels to meet Juncker on Brexit border deal – live Read more

Earlier, the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said her party had won “six substantive changes” to the text on the Irish border in overnight talks, ensuring there would be “no red line down the Irish Sea”.



On a morning of drama in Brussels, May was met by Juncker and his chief of staff, Martin Selmayr, shortly before 7am local time. Their meeting followed a flurry of diplomacy by the prime minister late on Thursday that fuelled speculation an agreement was edging closer.

Expectations that an announcement was imminent intensified when Selmayr tweeted a picture of white smoke emerging from the Vatican, the Catholic church’s signal that a new pope had been chosen.

After a week of false starts and frustration, May had been warned that she had until midnight on Sunday to salvage the agreement or face a long delay in starting Brexit trade talks.