More meetings please

The U.K. is using an old trick to meet a deadline: ask for more time.

As the third set of Brexit talks ran into familiar roadblocks and bitter frustrations were aired in public, an October deadline for a breakthrough is looking increasingly hard to meet. So the U.K. has asked the EU to squeeze in more negotiating sessions before then, according to a person familiar with the talks. 

There are only two more rounds planned before an EU summit that will decide if “sufficient progress” has been made on the divorce settlement for talks to move on to trade. The discussions are scheduled in week-long blocks, yet most of the 100-strong team of British officials didn’t arrive in Brussels until mid-morning on Tuesday. A concluding news conference is slated for Thursday lunchtime.

“The leeway the U.K. government has is very limited,” said Florian Otto, head of Europe research at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft. “It isn’t really an option to let the timeline slip because you have a lot of companies waiting to act on contingency plans.”

The EU has slammed the U.K. for presenting policy papers that don’t answer the key questions — such as the contentious divorce bill — and rebuffed the U.K.’s renewed requests for “flexibility.”

It’s sticking to its line that the terms of the split must be settled before trade talks begin. If leaders tell Britain in October that more work still needs to be done, then the next opportunity is probably December. That would leave barely a year for a new set of complex negotiations.

With or without an agreement, the U.K. is set to leave in March 2019 and the bloc won’t even consider transition arrangements until it’s satisfied the divorce settlement is on track. That means agreeing on a methodology for what the U.K. owes, guarantees for EU citizens living in the U.K., and how to manage the U.K.’s new border with the EU, which will run through the middle of the divided island of Ireland.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Prime Minister Theresa May is planning to go over the heads of commission officials and deal directly with leaders. She will reportedly tell them in October that she’s prepared to make a substantial financial payment but as part of a package that allows “significant” single market access and a customs deal during the transition. She may also approach leaders individually beforehand, the Times said. Still, the unity of the EU27 has so far been unbreached. That doesn’t bode well for any attempts to divide and conquer.

— Emma Ross-Thomas and Ian Wishart

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