Only ‘miracles’ can move Brexit talks forward by October, EU tells Britain

Only “miracles” can move Brexit talks far enough to fulfill Britain’s hopes of launching discussions next month on its future ties with the European Union, the head of the European Commission said on Friday.Prime Minister Theresa May had been hoping to use an informal EU meeting in the Estonian capital Tallinn to harness what she describes as renewed goodwill over Brexit to push the talks beyond the terms of the divorce, now just 18 months away.Britain had aimed to make a breakthrough at a summit in Brussels on Oct. 19-20. Two years have been set aside for the Brexit talks and Britain risks crashing out of the 28-state bloc on March 29, 2019, without a deal on future trade terms.But Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU executive and long a bogeyman for some in Britain’s eurosceptic press, said the first stage of talks on the rights of expatriates, the UK border with EU member Ireland and the financial settlement when Britain leaves had not gone far enough.“By the end of October, we will not have sufficient progress,” Juncker told reporters in Tallinn, a day after his chief negotiator ended the last round of Brexit talks.

 

Source: Only ‘miracles’ can move Brexit talks forward by October, EU tells Britain