LONDON (Reuters) – The leaders of Scotland and Wales called on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday to extend the transition period with the European Union, saying the coronavirus crisis had made meeting the year-end deadline “extraordinarily reckless”.
“While we hope that the second half of this year will see the beginnings of a recovery, we believe that exiting the transition period at the end of the year would be extraordinarily reckless,” Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford wrote in a letter.
“It would pile a further very significant economic and social shock on top of the COVID-19 crisis, hitting businesses whose reserves, in many case, have already been exhausted, leading to more business closures and redundancies.”
(Reporting by Elizabeth Piper, editing by Sarah Young)
