EU officials downbeat about Brexit progress
European Union officials have expressed doubt on the chances of reaching an agreement with the United Kingdom over Britain’s exit from the bloc, known as the Brexit.
"If you look where we are and where we need to be... it is a very big gap. It is unlikely that we will make major steps to close this gap," EU officials said on Friday, blaming London's "lack of substance" for delaying the process.
London has published several papers on its Brexit positions over the past weeks. The papers come ahead of a scheduled third round of Brexit negotiations next week. However, EU officials have complained that the British side has failed, so far, to address three key points: EU citizen rights, Northern Ireland's border and the divorce bill.
"It is not the lack of time that is preventing us from advancing, so far it has been the lack of substance," said an EU official who asked not to be named.
The second round of talks at the EU headquarters in July had wrapped up with "fundamental" differences remaining. After that round, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier warned Britain that it needed to clarify its position on key issues if there was to be "sufficient progress."
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"We see a lot of magical thinking" on behalf of the Brits, one of the EU officials complained.
The official urged London to accept reality and get prepared for the big economic and social impact of the Brexit.
Britain's divorce bill, estimated at up to 100 billion euros in Brussels but much less at 40 billion euros according to reports in London, EU officials said, was not a game of numbers but one of agreeing how to work out the settlement.
"We have to have a methodology sufficiently detailed so that commitments made to various beneficiaries of the EU budget will be honored," one official said.
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