The European Union and the United Kingdom are continuing their negotiations with a view to reaching a trade agreement by the end of the year. It was announced by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday.

On Sunday, the two parties would see if there was any point in continuing to talk after nine months of difficult negotiations. Earlier in the week it seemed that the negotiations would lead to a no deal scenario, but in the last 24 hours there seems to be a more positive wind blowing around the negotiations.

“Although we have missed several deadlines by now, we think that talking is the most responsible thing we can do,” said Von der Leyen at a short press conference. The president of the European Commission called her telephone call with Johnson “useful”.

Johnson stressed on Twitter that the differences between the two camps remain great. He repeated that what he said earlier this week: “we can still reach a deal, but the best chance is that we can make a Australia deal (without trade deals, so no deal.) with the EU.

The talks will continue in Brussels on Monday. Once again, the negotiators are looking at the outstanding problems: agreements on how many fish European anglers can catch in British waters, equal competition rules for British and European companies and the monitoring of the agreements reached.