The United Kingdom may end its negotiations in June with the European Union (EU) on a trade agreement. This appears on Thursday from the negotiating mandate of the British, which sets out the strategy for the negotiations. Negotiations between both parties begin next week.

The mandate states that the British hope to come up with an “extensive outline” of an agreement in June, and then come to a final agreement in September.

If that does not work out in June,

“the government will have to decide whether the UK should focus on negotiations or prepare fully for an orderly end of the transition period.”

It is questionable whether both parties will succeed in coming close to an agreement in a few months. Negotiating broad trade agreements usually takes much longer than a few months: the negotiation period for the CETA treaty between the EU and Canada lasted eight years. Negotiations on TTIP, a trade agreement between the EU and the United States, went wrong after four years.

In addition, the negotiating positions are miles apart: where the EU wants the UK to continue to comply with European rules in many areas in exchange for free trade, the British want to continue to trade freely with the European bloc, but without having to adopt European rules for it . “We’re not going to trade our sovereignty,” said Conservative Party politician Michael Gove on Thursday at the British House of Commons.