Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau has cancelled a trip to Brussels, as Belgium failed on Wednesday to clear internal opposition to the EU-Canada free-trade pact (Ceta). "Canada remains ready to sign this important agreement when Europe is ready," Alex Lawrence, the spokesperson for Canada’s International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, told German news agency DPA.
The British currency suffered a massive temporary loss in value overnight, diving 10% against the dollar in just minutes – a so-called flash crash. It fell from around $1.26 to near $1.14 in trading in Asia before recovering somewhat by the time Europe woke up, it was the most aggressive move since the results of the Brexit vote emerged in June.
With traders struggling to find whether it was a "fat finger error" or related to fears over Brexit, the Bank of England said in a statement: “We are looking at the causes of the sharp falls over night".
The EU summit will begin tomorrow in Bratislava, but some key issues have already appeared on the table: "We need to protect our external borders but we must take joint responsibility", is the statement released to press by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel after the meeting with French President François Hollande in Paris.
Brexit deal has not yet begun, but it already appears uphill, after the European Commission has appointed as negotiator few days ago, the former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, the current leader of the liberals at the European Parliament.
In a tweet he said: "Brexit should be delivered before 2019, when EU politics enters into new cycle & the @Europarl_EN starts new mandate" and pointing out that if the UK wants to continue to have access to the common market, must also accept the freedom of movement of citizens, considering "inseparable" the four freedoms of movement of goods, services, capital and people.
