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The European Union and the UK have agreed a 21-month Brexit transition period that will commence on 29 March 2019 and extend until 31 December 2020.
Speaking in Brussels on Monday morning, European Commission chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier and the UK’s secretary of state for exiting the European Union David Davis said EU rules would continue to apply during the transition period.
Davis said the implementation period would allow businesses to plan with confidence.
While large parts of the December joint agreement covering citizens' rights and the financial settlement have been translated directly into legal text, the same has not happened with the Irish border.
Against a backdrop of dozens of pages highlighted with colour-coded text, Michel Barnier said the European Union and the UK agreed that “the back-stop solution must form part of the legal text of the withdrawal agreement” to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, unless another solution is found.
“Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed,” he said in a media briefing on Monday morning.
"On the EU side, it's now up to Member States to assess the progress made, when they adopt guidelines at the end of the week, which will enable us to start the discussions on future relations with the United Kingdom" @MichelBarnier ahead of #EUCO #Brexit https://t.co/R2GJtRodJy
— European Commission ???? (@EU_Commission) March 19, 2018
David Davis said: “Both the UK and the EU are committed to the joint report in December, in its entirety.”
He added that the Britain’s aim was to uphold the Good Friday Agreement and ensure there is no hard border and therefore no impediment to trade between Northern Ireland and the Repblic of Ireland or, indeed, between Northern Ireland and Britain.
“The UK government is steadfast in its commitment to avoiding a hard border,” he added.
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