UK govt prepared to pay 40bn Brexit bill: Report
talks can start on a free trade agreement.
EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has warned that the trade negotiations, which Britain hopes will start in October, may be pushed back to December because Britain is stalling on the bill, diplomats said last month.
British officials are looking at proposing a transition deal where Britain would continue to make net payments to the EU of € 10bn a year for up to three years after it leaves in March 2019, the Telegraph said.
This money, paid in return for continued access to Europe’s single market, would be a ‘partial down-payment’ on the final bill.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s government refused to comment on Sunday on ‘speculation’, although a source told AFP that Britain ‘ will meet our interna- put the figure at € 60bn.
After the referendum vote for Brexit last year, London began the two-year process of ending its membership of the EU in March.
Formal negotiations with the EU began in June, with the next round of talks between Barnier and British Brexit Secretary David Davis due to resume in Brussels on August 28.
EU leaders meeting at a summit in October must agree there has been ‘sufficient progress’ in the early talks before agreeing to move onto trade negotiations.
Britain is keen to agree a new free trade agreement to replace its membership of Europe’s single market, which May wants to leave in order to end free movement of workers into Britain from the rest of the EU.