Brexit deal in FULL: EU trade deal with UK published - what is in the deal?
THE BREXIT deal has now been published in full, with both the British Government and the EU sharing the outcome of months of wrangling, just five days before the transition period ends.
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The EU and Boris Johnson's Government managed to, with the help of their negotiators, pass through a deal on Christmas Eve the Prime Minister has called his "present" to the UK. Until now, people have only had summative looks at what politicians and analysts have released, but the documents today will allow them to look over the nearly 2,000 page tome which will define EU-UK relations for the foreseeable future.
What is in the Brexit deal?
Both the EU and UK have now published the document agreed on Christmas Eve.
The full text is 500 pages long - extended to nearly 2,000 with appendices - and maps out issues ranging from the big-picture down to the microscopic.
The document has already attracted significant attention, both hailed and trashed by political and legal experts who have started to wade through the minutiae.
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The Brexit deal provides a replacement for the agreement the UK once held with the EU.
The Government has published it on the Gov.uk portal with a summary of what it means for the country and its former partners over the channel. You can read it in full here.
The EU Commission has done the same, as chief negotiator Michel Barnier revealed on Twitter, available here.
The UK has had some "victories", as a Government document declared, compromises and losses in negotiating ground.
Every decision ad agreement is included in five chapters of new legislation.
The chapters include:
- Summary Explainer
- Trade and Cooperation Agreement (including Annexes and Protocols)
- Declarations
- Nuclear Cooperation Agreement
- Agreement on Security Procedures for Exchanging and Protecting
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The Brexit agreement follows 11 months of negotiations, most of which took place through the coronavirus pandemic and without an extension.
Legal experts have already started pouring over the document, announced on the day talks were due to cease, with a range of reactions.
David Allen Green, a lecturer in law at Birmingham University, was one of the first legal professionals to give his analysis.
He posted an initial analysis based on the EU's released documents which seemed to show Brexit is all but finished, with more negotiations to come.
He wrote on Twitter: "About ten pages of the UK-EU trade agreement are devoted to setting up - without exaggeration - dozens and dozens of UK-EU talking shops
"Committees, assemblies, working groups and so on. All with various powers and functions. Welcome to the future, negotiations without end."
Further, more in depth analysis will have to wait as everyone else combs through the thousands of pages.
Overall, the UK and EU could need to gear up for a "forever Brexit", according to Dave Keating, a journalist covering EU politics in Brussels.