GERMANY and France are putting together a shock report in a bid to stop Brexit negotiations proceeding to phase two, it has been revealed.
The tense Brexit talks have reached a standstill over how much money the UK will pay when it leaves, the rights of European citizens living in Britain after the exit and the Irish border issue.
This comes weeks before a summit in December, which is seen as critical and at a time when Prime Minister Theresa May is hoping that European Union leaders will agree to talk about future trade with the UK.
But according to Politico, Germany and France are preparing two sets of draft conclusions with the most likely demanding no automatic continuation of Brexit talks to phase two unless “sufficient progress” is made.
British officials see France and Germany as the key member states they need to convince.
According to the Guardian, senior officials in Brussels say negotiations have stalled since the Prime Minister’s speech in Florence and have warned the EU will find it difficult to agree to trade talks at a December summit unless more is offered on the Brexit divorce settlement.
Italy’s Europe minister, Sandro Gazi, said earlier this week there remains “a lot to do on financial obligations”.
Diplomats and officials have warned the slow pace of the divorce talks could increase the possibility EU leaders would refuse to open trade talks in December.
The talks have moved very slowly since their launch in June, particularly the bill, which the EU think should be around £53 million.
Last month, the German chancellor Angela Merkel said: “We hope that by December we have moved along enough to allow phase two to begin but that depends on the extent to which Great Britain makes progress so that we can say that it is sufficient on the core themes of phase one.”
A few weeks ago, the European Council President Donald Tusk said he was still hopeful the deadlock could be broken and the EU was not working on a “no deal” scenario.
Britain has until March 2019 to negotiate its withdraw from the 28-member bloc.