Bloomberg News
@Bloomberg-News·2.8M subscribers·40.1K videos
Brexit Talks Suspended After Aide Tests Positive for Covid
Posted
November 20, 2020
Views
2,461
Likes
17
Comments
9
Engagement
1.06%
November 20, 2020
2,461
17
9
1.06%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
Episode Timeline
Every episode in order around the one you’re watching — click any card and the page flips straight to it.
1:27
4:42Now PlayingCrunch talks over a post-Brexit trade agreement were disrupted on Thursday when a European Union official involved in the negotiations tested positive for the coronavirus.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, will suspend talks with his U.K. counterpart David Frost “for a short period,” he said in a tweet on Thursday. He will also go into a period of quarantine, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
The two teams will continue their work “in full respect of guidelines,” Barnier said.
Negotiators who haven’t been in contact with the official who tested positive will continue with face-to-face talks in Brussels, while others will carry on discussions virtually, said the person, who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
“The health of our teams comes first,” Frost said in a tweet, adding that he is in close contact with Barnier about the situation.
The pound was was little changed on the news, trading 0.4% lower against the dollar at 4:50 p.m. in Brussels.
Negotiations have been going on in Brussels since Sunday. Officials have said they are in the final stretch, with an agreement possible next week. The two sides are trying to strike an accord in time for it to be ratified before the U.K. leaves the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of the year.
Although the two sides had yet to bridge their differences on the three most difficult topics of fishing, the level playing field for businesses, and the governance of a potential trade agreement, officials had recently been relatively upbeat. Barnier was scheduled to brief EU government envoys in Brussels about the state of the talks on Friday morning. That will now be done by one of his deputies.
This isn’t the first time the coronavirus has disrupted the negotiations. In March, Barnier, Frost and several members of their teams were forced into isolation after either testing positive for, or showing symptoms of, Covid. The two sides were also forced to suspend face-to-face discussions as Europe went into a continent-wide lockdown.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.
To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.
Connect with us on…
Breaking News on YouTube
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
