Brexit: No significant progress made on any issue in negotiations since March, says EU
Michel Barnier said talks on the future relationship had not even started despite getting the green light in March
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Your support makes all the difference.No significant progress has been made on any of the main Brexit issues in negotiations between the EU and UK since March, the European Union has said.
EU27 ministers met on Monday with the bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels to discuss the state of talks so far.
“Mr Barnier informed us that since 23 March no significant progress has been made on the three pillars that we work on: withdrawal, future framework, and Ireland,” Ekaterina Zakharieva, the Bulgarian foreign minister chairing the council, told journalists at an official press conference following the meeting.
The renewed deadlock in Brussels comes as Theresa May’s cabinet repeatedly fails to agree with itself on what customs arrangement it wants with the EU after Brexit, despite publishing two options in August of last year. Both those options were dismissed as “magical thinking” by the EU at the time.
Speaking at a separate event in Brussels on Monday evening, Mr Barnier himself said that full talks on the future relationship had not even started in earnest despite getting the green light at a summit in March.
“There is still a lot of uncertainty. Negotiations on the future with the UK have not started yet. We have had first exploratory discussions,” he said.
Ms Zakharieva said the EU27 countries wanted more “intensive engagement by the UK government in the coming weeks”, warning that the October deadline was “only five months from now”.
Negotiations on the future with the UK have not started yet.
Ms May will next meet EU leaders in Brussels at the end of June for a meeting of the European Council.
Ms Zakharieva said: “In June, we need to see substantive progress on Ireland, governance, and all remaining separation issues. Our citizens and our businesses on both sides of the channel need more security and predictability for the future. As soon as possible they need clarity about what will happen when Brexit takes place.”
The EU has set October as the final deadline for a deal to be finalised in order to give the European parliament, UK parliament and other institutions time to scrutinise and sign off the final withdrawal agreement.
Talks have been notably stuck on the question of customs and trade, an issue that needs to be solved to untangle other issues, such as Northern Ireland and the framework for the future trade relationship between the two entities.
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