February 19, 2020
PARIS (Reuters) – France would not sign a bad post-Brexit deal with the United Kingdom on Dec. 31 just for the sake of agreeing one to meet a deadline, said French European Affairs Minister Amelie de Montchalin on Wednesday.
“We must not cede to the pressures of a timetable,” Montchalin told a hearing of the French Senate.
Britain left the EU in January with an 11-month, business-as-usual transition period, and will need to agree new trading terms from January 2021 to avoid potential disruption to commerce.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by John Stonestreet)
