Get Serious
Michel Barnier could hardly have been clearer . The EU’s chief negotiator cast off diplomatic language to start the third round of talks on Monday with a firm rebuke : “We must start negotiating seriously.” Barnier dismissed a raft of recent British policy documents, essentially telling Brexit Secretary David Davis the U.K. has been answering the wrong question. Barnier wants to know the U.K.’s position on how much it’s prepared to pay as a financial settlement when it leaves, Bloomberg’s Ian Wishart reports. For its part, the U.K. continued to call for “imagination” and flexibility. It still wants to show the EU that the issues of the divorce and the future relationship are intertwined and it makes sense to address them together. The EU has been clear it wants to tackle the U.K.-EU split first, and only then will it agree to talk about the future. Moving on to trade talks was penciled in for October but now looks more likely to slip. “If the papers question the agreed