BREAKING NEWS

EU's Barnier says time too short for alternatives to Irish backstop

PARIS, Jan 30 - Time is too short to find an alternative arrangement to the Irish backstop and Britain's divorce deal with the European Union will not be re-opened for negotiation, the EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Wednesday.

"We ourselves talked of so-called alternative arrangements which could prevent the return of a hard border. Only, no one, on either side, was able to say what arrangement would be needed to ensure controls on goods, animals and merchandise, without having a border," Barnier told France's RTL radio.

"We have neither the time, nor the technologies."