Divorce bill focus of Brexit talks on Monday

But a week ago Mr Davis said “we will start down this process but I will have some discussions with Mr Barnier about how we progress” to trade talks.

Davis stuck to May’s script on Monday, saying without qualification that Britain would be leaving Europe’s single market and its customs union.

POLITICO revealed on Thursday, June 15 that the Brexit talks would get underway Monday as planned despite the start date being thrown into doubt by the inconclusive result of the UK’s general election.

Merkel said Monday: “I think it is premature to speculate on the first day of the negotiations how they will end”. We also have to find solutions to maintaining all the commitments of the Good Friday Agreement. It is not yet clear whether the exit clock can be stopped by the United Kingdom withdrawing its Article 50 notification.

“Our view is that withdrawal agreement and terms of the future relationship must be agreed alongside each other”.

“Both sides will also discuss the structure of the negotiations and the issues that need to be addressed over the coming months”. But while Britain may be exercising its sovereign right to leave, Barnier said, “The United Kingdom will no longer enjoy the same rights and advantages as European Union members”.

The association represents 3,200 businesses with a million employees in Germany making industrial machinery.

Britain already appears to have capitulated to the EU’s insistence that talks first focus on three key divorce issues, before moving onto the future EU-UK relationship and a possible trade deal.

Winter/spring 2017/18 If talks are proceeding to plan, negotiators can be expected to be meeting regularly to iron out remaining issues and identify the points of difference to be settled by political leaders at the highest level.

“Our big problem is that we have no picture, no idea at all, what the British want”, said German Manfred Weber, the head of the EPP Christian Democrat group in the European Parliament.

European Union sources claimed yesterday the British Government still hasn’t sent their paperwork outlining its opening position – despite Brussels chiefs sending theirs.

Some Conservatives have called for a more inclusive approach that would include opposition parties as well as stronger voices from Scotland and Northern Ireland, where a majority of voters backed Britain to stay in the EU. Gabriel and Austria’s Chancellor Christian Kern have voiced sharp criticism of the latest USA sanctions against Moscow, Thursday, June 15, 2017, because they could affect European businesses involved in piping Russian natural gas to Europe.

What that future relationship will look like remains anyone’s guess.

The British side will be led by the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, David Davis, while the EU side will be led by the chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. “We will negotiate in good faith but it is a negotiation, we recognize there will be an exchange of views and we will take that forward in a spirit of genuine cooperation”. At a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg he said: “The most important thing for us is to look to the horizon, raise our eyes to the horizon”.

“That position hasn’t changed, it’s the same as it was before”, said Davis, a tough-talking figure in the “Leave” campaign in last year’s Brexit referendum.

But speculating now on different kinds of trade pact – on “soft Brexit” or “hard” – is to put cart before horse, they say.