German Chancellor Angela Merkel says an agreement on Britain’s future relations with the European Union shouldn’t be too vague and is renewing a warning that London can’t select benefits of the bloc’s single market.
Negotiators aim to break a deadlock and reach a deal in November. Britain is to leave the EU in March.
Merkel said in Berlin on Tuesday that a declaration on future relations must be “as concrete as possible,” because if it is too general a planned 21-month transition period could be too short to draw up a full free-trade agreement. She added that “playing for time won’t help business either.”
She said that “you can’t belong to the single market if you only want to belong to the single market in one area but not in three others.”