EU warns May ‘clock ticking’ for December Brexit deal

GOTHENBURG: EU leaders warned British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday that the “clock is ticking” to make Brexit concessions and it is increasingly likely talks will fail to move on to the next phase in December.

Britain’s impending split threatened to overshadow an EU summit in the Swedish port city of Gothenburg that was meant to focus on improving social standards and seeing off the threat of populism in the post-Brexit future.

May expressed hopes the bloc would respond “positively” after she met several leaders on the sidelines, but they all warned that time was running out to settle the key divorce issues, and unlock negotiations next month on a trade deal and transition period.

“The clock is ticking. I hope that we will be able to come to an agreement as far as the divorce is concerned at the December council (summit) but work has still to be done,” European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said.

EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier warned last week that Britain had just two weeks to meet the bloc’s conditions on its divorce bill, citizens’ rights and the Irish border if it wanted an agreement.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar struck a firm line, saying Dublin’s demands that Brexit should create no “hard border” between Britishruled Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland must be “written down” in the conclusions of the first phase.

“If we have to wait until the new year, or if we have to wait for further concessions, so be it,” Varadkar told reporters before having breakfast with May.

“It’s 18 months since the referendum, it’s 10 years since people who wanted a referendum started agitating for one, sometimes it doesn’t seem like they’ve thought all this through,” he added.

May said Britain would “honor our commitments” on the exit bill, as she promised in a speech in Florence in September, and urged the bloc to start trade talks now.

“I look forward to the European Union responding positively to that so we can move forward together and ensure that we can get the best possible arrangements for the future,” May said.

British media reports have suggested May could be ready to double the UK’s €20 billion offer on the exit bill in a bid to clear what has been the most difficult hurdles in talks so far. The EU says the bill is around €60 billion.