EU-UK talks, fishing threat kick Brexit back into high gear

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Brexit brawl kicked into high gear Friday on sticking points over Northern Ireland and French fishing, coming almost a year after a deal on a free trade agreement was supposed to have officially sealed the separation between the European Union and the United Kingdom.

The top Brexit negotiators from both sides entered talks again, with troublesome trade issues in Northern Ireland taking center stage. If they fail to find a common solution, the suspension of the trade deal and even retaliatory measures might be possible between the two. The EU is looking for a deal by Christmas.

“Obviously, there is still quite a big gap. And that’s what we’ve got to work through,” U.K. chief negotiator David Frost said as he entered a lunch meeting with his EU counterpart, Maros Sefcovic.

Making matters worse, fish might also be pushed onto the menu, with French fishermen more vocal about blocking ports for what they see as British duplicitousness in refusing to grant them all the fishing licenses they want.

While fishing licenses might be easily solved with some goodwill, the standoff over Northern Ireland is different and fundamental.

Northern Ireland is U.K. territory but effectively remained part of the EU’s borderless trading market for goods when the U.K. left the bloc last year, causing practical problems for businesses and institutional wrangling over which side is in charge of what.

The U.K. also is insisting the EU cede final legal oversight by its top court of any disputes on Northern Ireland trade and instead make them subject to independent arbitration, something the 27-nation bloc is flatly rejecting.

“The governance arrangements as we have them don’t work," Frost said. "We need to take the (EU) court out of the system as it is now, and we need to...