The seventh round of post-Brexit trade talks took place in Brussels, beginning on August 19; with time running out to reach agreement, little progress was made on the headline issues after two days of debate. At the time of writing, the eighth round of talks are taking place in London.

Disagreement over fisheries and a level playing field have already caused problems in moving the negotiations forward and no progress was made on either this time around. In a statement following the negotiations, the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that further differences remain on law enforcement to protect citizens’ rights, migration and dispute settlement. Progress was however reported on energy cooperation, anti-money laundering and participation in Union programmes.

Concluding his statement, Mr Barnier said “at this stage, an agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union seems unlikely. I simply do not understand why we are wasting valuable time.”

The UK’s chief negotiator David Frost was hopeful that agreement was still possible but that will not be easily achievable. Acknowledging that little progress had been made that week, Mr Frost said the reason was because “The EU is still insisting not only that we must accept continuity with EU state aid and fisheries policy, but also that this must be agreed before any further substantive work can be done in any other area of the negotiation, including on legal texts.”

Having a trade deal in place by the end of the year is the target for both sides; this must be agreed by the EU Summit in mid-October to have any chance of ratification by the end of the year. For the UK, ratification is much more straightforward with only the Parliament in Westminster needing to approve the deal. On the EU side, a qualified majority (55 percent of Member States representing 65 percent of the European population) must support the agreement in the European Council, and it must also be supported by a majority vote in European Parliament.