European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen has told the UK sthat ‘without free movement of people, you can’t have free movement of goods, capital, services’ and ‘without a level playing field you cannot have the highest quality access to the world’s largest single market’.
Speaking at the London School of Economics ahead of her meeting with the Prime Minister Boris Johnson this afternoon She added that she wanted a deal with ‘zero tariffs, zero quotas, and zero commodity-dumping’ in order to keep shared ‘data protection… and security’.
Boris Johnson will meet Ursula Von der Leyen and Europe’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in No. 10 later this afternoon for ‘introductory talks’.
The meeting will not launch trade talks as the UK hasn’t formally left the EU, however a Downing Street spokesperson says Boris will tell Von der Leyen to make sure that talks are ‘on time’ and that ‘upcoming negotiations will be based on an ambitious free trade agreement, not on alignment’.
On the subject of the talks Von Dee Leyen added
“We will go as far as we can, but the truth is that our partnership cannot and will not be the same as before and it cannot and will not be as close as before because with every choice comes a consequences with every decision comes a trade off.”
