Will there be an ambitious free trade agreement — or will the two sides settle for a bare-bones deal to simply keep the cross-Channel goods trade flowing?

Brussels, Belgium (AFP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson secured initial parliamentary backing for his Brexit withdrawal bill Friday, putting Britain on course to leave on 31 January — but the saga will not end even with final confirmation from lawmakers.

From as early as 1 February, European Union (EU) and British officials will launch intense negotiations on the future trading relationship between the divorcing partners.

The post-Brexit transition period, in which the UK will continue to follow EU rules, finishes at the end of 2020, and Johnson says he will not seek an extension.

But it will be “extremely challenging” to reach a comprehensive accord in time, the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen warned this week.

EU negotiator Michel Barnier and his “Taskforce UK” are working overtime in Brussels to prepare a negotiating mandate, hoping to control the timetable and sequencing of talks.

Will there be an ambitious free trade agreement — or will the two sides settle for a bare-bones deal to simply keep the cross-Channel goods trade flowing?

Experts widely agree that it will take far longer to achieve a comprehensive trade deal worthy of a country destined to be one of the EU’s closest partners.

And, speaking to MEPs this week, Barnier said: “Time is limited and it won’t be possible to do everything, but we’ll do everything we can. We can’t do it all but we will give it our all.”

“After the transition period we’ll have to continue to work with the British and to negotiate,” he said.

Despite Johnson’s assurances to British voters, trade deals do not just come off the shelf “oven-ready”, especially if Britain is looking for a vastly different relationship.

If Britain wants frictionless access to the EU single market, it will have to follow European rules to maintain a “level playing field,” and Johnson has shown no sign of wanting this.

A fast agreement would be “a very big ask” that would limit the ambition of the deal tremendously, Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist at the European Policy Centre, told AFP last week.

The British government will have to decide by 1 July if it wants to postpone the 31 December 2020 deadline.

On that date, it could make a one-time only request for either one or two years of extra time.

Otherwise, Zuleeg said, “maybe they can achieve something very basic that would give the UK very limited leverage on the tricky subjects like services, fisheries or Gibraltar for Spain.”

As a matter of reference, other EU trade talks have dragged on much longer from the launch of talks to implementation:

“Striking a trade deal by the end 2020 is enormously ambitious, but we won’t achieve it if we don’t try,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who will be an influential voice on trade, has warned.

Negotiators will have to show convincing progress by 1 July and leave enough time for translation, legal rewrites — known as “scrubbing” — and ratification.

Zuleeg says the UK would have to accept major concessions on the key issues to win the fast deal.

Cutting or stopping tariffs on goods will probably be achievable, but that leaves no time for the UK to negotiate on other topics.