Irish PM says EU has upper hand in Brexit trade talks with UK

Varadkar, in an interview with the BBC, compared the two sides to soccer teams and suggested that the EU would have the "stronger team" due to its larger population and market. Credit: Reuters Photo

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said the European Union will have the upper hand in post-Brexit trade talks with the United Kingdom and questioned Prime Minister Boris Johnson's timetable of striking a deal by the end of the year, the BBC reported.

Varadkar, in an interview with the BBC, compared the two sides to soccer teams and suggested that the EU would have the "stronger team" due to its larger population and market.

"The European Union is a union of 27 member states. The UK is only one country. And we have a population and a market of 450 million people," he told the BBC.

When asked about Johnson's aim of getting a deal by the end of 2020, he said: "It will be difficult to do this".