European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said today, “we are on the very last mile” on Brexit trade negotiations. “We want a level playing field, not only at the start but also over time … this is the architecture that we are building,” she said. “We’re fine about the architecture itself but the details, do they really fit?”

“We’re of course aware that time is short. The more time that goes by the less likely it is that we will have a deal in place on the first of January, that’s just a statement of fact,” Commission spokesman Daniel Ferrie told a news briefing separately, “I cannot say what may or may not happen over these days. But what I can say, though, is that we are fully dedicated to trying to reach a deal with the UK.”

EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters today, “Two conditions aren’t met yet. Free and fair competition … and an agreement which guarantees reciprocal access to markets and waters. And it’s on these points that we haven’t found the right balance with the British. So we keep working,”

The comments came after EU and UK agreed to “go the extra mile” with the negotiations, which has already passed Sunday’s deadline.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told reporters today that there are “two key things” stuck in the Brexit trade negotiations with the EU. The UK is now “very very likely ” to come out of the EU “on World Trade terms”, i.e., no-deal Brexit.

“There are two key things where we just can’t seem to make progress and that’s this kind of ratchet clause they’ve got in to keep the UK locked in to whatever they want to do in terms of legislation, which obviously doesn’t work,” Johnson said. “And then there is the whole issue of fish where we’ve got to be able to take back control of our waters.”

“It is looking very, very likely that we will have to go for a solution that I think would be wonderful for the UK, and we’d be able to do exactly what we want from January 1 – it obviously would be different from what we’d set out to achieve but I have no doubt this country can get ready and, as I say, come out on World Trade terms,” he added.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after the EU summit “positions remain apart on fundamental issues” in the the post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK. They would decide on Sunday “whether we have conditions for an agreement, or not”. But, “one way or the other, in less than three weeks, it will be new beginnings for old friends”.

She insisted that EU’s proposals would not undermine UK’s sovereignty. On the level playing field, “this is not to say that we would require the UK to follow us every time we decide to raise our level of ambition, for example, in the environmental field,” she added. “They would remain free – sovereign if you wish – to decide what they want to do. We would simply adapt the conditions for access to our market accordingly the decision of the United Kingdom, and this would apply vice versa.”