Hurry up! May’s blast at sluggish Brussels

THERESA May is urging the EU to ‘intensify’ the pace of Brexit negotiations, Downing Street said yesterday.

Amid growing frustration at footdragging by Brussels, No10 said the Government wants to accelerate the pace of talks, which currently take place for just one week a month on a timetable set by the EU.

Brexit Secretary David Davis and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier both remarked on the slow progress when they met last week. Ministers have requested rolling talks to start from September 18.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said yesterday: ‘We are ready to intensify negotiations. Nothing has been formally agreed but that is something we can discuss. Typically, with negotiations, as time goes on you see the pace pick up.’

A Government source said yesterday ministers were finding the EU’s negotiating timetable ‘immensely frustrating’. Mr Davis warned at the weekend that Brussels was playing ‘time against money’ in an attempt to extract a massive divorce payment from the UK. But No10 insisted yesterday Mrs May would not agree any divorce bill until talks on a future trade deal begin.

‘We have said we want to get on and talk about our future relationship with Europe,’ a spokesman said. ‘We would like to do that now.’ Mr Barnier has said he will not allow trade talks to start until ‘sufficient progress’ has been made on key issues such as the divorce bill, with Brussels demanding up to £90billion.

Yesterday the European Parliament’s chief negotiator Guy Verhofstadt said talks could be delayed further if Mrs May presses ahead with plans to make a major speech on Europe later this month. He said the delay would be to give people time to digest what she had said.

At the weekend, Mr Barnier was reported to have told a conference the British public needed to be ‘educated’ about the ‘extremely serious consequences of leaving the single market’.