Post-Brexit trade negotiations will be ‘uncharted waters’, Hogan warns

EU trade commissioner talks down prospect of free-trade agreement being reached by the end of next year

Phil Hogan: said the British government’s priority should be ‘to outline its preferences, and then carefully define its offensive and defensive interests for each stage of negotiations’.

Phil Hogan, the European Union’s trade chief, has signalled that post-Brexit Britain and the EU would struggle to reach a free-trade agreement before the end of next year.

The intervention by the former Fine Gael minister highlights the risk of British commercial ties with the bloc being severed in a disruptive way.

“We have no accurate way to predict how long it will take to negotiate a deal with the UK because there is no ...