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

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." (Reporting by Richard Lough; Editing by Matthias Blamont)