Negotiations between the U.K. and the E.U. are still ongoing as both sides put the finishing touches on the Brexit deal. A source at the EU’s executive, the Commission, said talks were still ongoing but were now in their “final stages”, and one EU official urged caution, Reuters reports.
Nevertheless, three diplomatic sources in the bloc told Reuters that member states were already prepping to implement any deal from Jan. 1 if one was made.
The United Kingdom has been negotiating a free trade deal with the EU bloc as it exits from the EU’s single market and customs union at the end of 2020. A Brexit trade deal would ensure that the exports between the two that makes up half of annual EU-UK commerce, worth nearly a trillion dollars, remains free of trade barriers.