Joint Statement from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: 13 December 2020

We had a useful phone call this morning. We discussed the major unresolved topics.

Our negotiating teams have been working day and night over recent days.

And despite the exhaustion after almost a year of negotiations, despite the fact that deadlines have been missed over and over we think it is responsible at this point to go the extra mile.

We have accordingly mandated our negotiators to continue the talks and to see whether an agreement can even at this late stage be reached.