Britain gives EU more time to ratify post-Brexit trade deal

BRUSSELS - Britain has accepted a request by the European Union (EU) for extra time to ratify the post-Brexit trade agreement, European Commissioner for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight Maros Sefcovic said on Tuesday.

He said Britain agreed to extend the period of provisional application of the agreement until April 30 "to give the necessary time to complete our ratification procedure" in all of the bloc's 24 official languages.

A deadline had originally been set for Feb. 28 for the European Parliament to formally scrutinize the legal document of the trade deal, while it was provisionally applied from Jan. 1 this year.

The fast-track procedures were adopted in the EU as the post-Brexit agreement was only reached before Christmas, one week before the transitional period would have expired at the end of 2020.