Britain, EU to resume talks, attempt to narrow gap

LONDON — Divorce talks between Britain and the European Union will resume next week, U.K. Brexit chief David Davis said Tuesday as he urged an intensification of the spluttering negotiations.

Davis told a parliamentary committee that the sixth round of talks would start Nov. 7 in Brussels.

Five previous rounds overseen by Davis and chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier have failed to resolve big differences on key issues, including the amount Britain must pay to settle its financial obligations to the 28-nation bloc.

The U.K. is due to leave the EU in March 2019, and the stagnating talks have raised fears that it could crash out without a deal, with huge economic and legal consequences.

Britain hopes EU leaders will declare at a meeting in December that talks have made enough progress on divorce terms to move onto future relations and trade.

Davis insisted Tuesday he is confident Britain is “on timetable” to get a good outcome by March 2019.

He also rebuffed allegations that Britain is unprepared for Brexit, saying the tax and customs department would recruit as many as 5,000 new staff next year to deal with expected changes.

The government also says it has committed more than $1.7 billion to cover Brexit costs until 2022.

Britain voted by 52 percent to 48 percent in June 2016 to leave the EU, and the country remains deeply divided over the issue.

On Tuesday the U.K. statistics agency said that one of the chief claims by Brexit advocates during the referendum was wide of the mark.

The Office for National Statistics said Britain’s net transfer to the EU in 2016 was $12.4 billion, about half of what Brexit supporters said could be saved by leaving the EU.