EU leaders try to move past stalled Brexit discussions

Details of UK plan to leave group remain difficult to finalize.

Leaders of Britain BRUSSELS — and the 27 other European Union members agreed Friday that much remains to be done in Brexit talks amid deep divisions about the terms of their breakup, particularly on how much London should pay in the divorce.

While EU President Donald Tusk said that “reports of a deadlock between the European Union and the United Kingdom have been exaggerated,” many other leaders were far less upbeat as a two-day summit in Brussels wrapped up.

French President Emmanuel Macron said “there is a lot of work left to do” in the highly complex talks on Britain’s exit from the bloc, which will take place on March 29, 2019.

“We have not gone even halfway down the road,” Macron told reporters.

British Prime Minister Theresa May urged her EU counterparts to bring new momentum to the talks, even as an interim goal was missed to widen the talks from the more immediate divorce issues to future EU-U.K. relations and trade arrangements after Britain leaves.

The aim is now to widen the talks in mid-December, but doubt remains over whether that deadline can be met.

“I am ambitious and positive for Britain’s future and for these negotiations. But I know we still have some way to go,” May said, after informal breakfast talks with the other leaders.

Despite calls from both sides to accelerate the negotiations, they remain bogged down on the terms of divorce, which the EU insists must be finalized before talks move onto trade. The main divorce issues include the rights of citizens affected by Brexit, the status of the Ireland-Northern Ireland border and the exact sum of Britain’s exit bill — which the EU estimates at 60-100 billion euros ($70-120 billion), compared with a possible 20 billion euro offer from London.

May has promised to pay into the EU budget until 2020, but has not committed her country to future financial obligations or specified what these would be.

She said her government is now going through this “line by line.”

To try to break the deadlock, May’s EU partners agreed Friday to begin discussing among themselves what their joint position should be on future relations and trade. That would get them ready to tackle the issue at their next summit on Dec. 14-15, provided they find the divorce terms are settled, and shows the British a measure of goodwill.

May argues that the divorce terms and future relations are closely interlinked and cannot therefore be negotiated separately. She acknowledged Friday that much remains to be done on some of the divorce issues before the European Union sees “enough progress” to move on.

She said both sides were within “touching distance” on citizens’ rights but still had more work to do on settling the border between EU member country Ireland and Northern Ireland.