Britain’s Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. Picture: REUTERS/PHIL NOBLE
The hard part is deciding priorities for the UK-EU trade talks that will immediately follow, because compromises carry costs. Johnson often gets his way against the odds, but the difference between what he hopes for from an EU deal and what he can realistically expect is the difference between imagining yourself as Mikaela Shiffrin tearing down a slalom slope rather than an average vacation skier.
Even if both sides want very much to conclude a deal, their starting positions are far apart. Von der Leyen and her chief negotiator Michel Barnier made clear this week that there’s a trade-off between market access and divergence from EU rules and standards. That, indeed, is the EU’s overarching objective.
While there’s much talk about a fisheries agreement — a key goal for EU members, who want access to British waters, but also for the UK, which sells most of its fishing haul into the EU tariff-free — agriculture might be a bigger sticking point. The EU will be reluctant to remove its farming protections without knowing what kind of deals the UK will strike with other countries, notes Eric White, a trade law consultant at the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.