(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Sufficient progress has not yet been made in Brexit talks to allow negotiations to move to the next phase of discussing the future relationship including trade, European Council President Donald Tusk said yesterday.
After a meeting in Downing Street with Prime Minister Theresa May, Tusk said he welcomed a new constructive and realistic tone from the government, adding that 'this shows that the philosophy of having a cake and eating it is finally coming to an end — at least I hope so.
He added: 'We will discuss our future relations with the UK once there is so-called sufficient progress. The sides are working and we work hard at it.
But if you ask me... I would say there's no sufficient progress yet, but we will work on it.
Britain wants to move divorce talks on from settling budget commitments with the bloc and issues such as the future status of EU citizens living in the UK to discussions about future trade relations. However, Tusk insisted that the UK needed to show more willingness to settle its financial obligations and on the rights of EU citizens before the EU would be willing to enter the next phase of talks on a future trade deal.
'We will discuss future relations with the UK once there is sufficient progress, said the council president, who represents national governments in Brussels. 'The sides are working hard at it but if you ask me, and if today member states ask me, I would say there is not sufficient progress yet.
Downing Street said the prime minister had used the meeting to call on the EU to be more 'imaginative and creative and also stressed the 'importance of agreeing a period of implementation once Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.
'At the end of the meeting, the PM said her Florence speech had been intended to create momentum in the ongoing talks, said a No 10 spokesperson. 'She said it was important for EU negotiators to now respond in the same spirit.
Earlier, the prime minister urged Tusk to consider her speech last week calling for a transition period and continued payments as a moment to step up their talks.
'Obviously things have moved on in terms of the discussions we've been having, May told the former Polish prime minister as they sat down in No 10.
'By being creative in the ways we approach these issues, we can find solutions that work both for the remaining (EU) 27 but also for the UK and maintain that co-operation and partnership between the UK and the EU, she added.
She said they would 'be able to discuss what I set out last week in Florence that hope for a deep and special partnership that we want to create with the European Union when we leave and pointed out that she was also now 'unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe's security and want(ed) to have a good security partnership as well.
But the EU has shown a united front in its response to the impasse in Brussels, where the chief negotiator Michel Barnier and Brexit secretary David Davis appear no closer to a breakthrough this week.
Responding to Davis's claim that May's €20bn offer in her speech in Florence now left no excuse for a lack of progress, Poland's EU affairs minister Konrad Szymanski said separately yesterday that he feared the two sides' starkly contrary perspectives on the talks could lead them to fail.
The UK had legal obligations to meet, Szymanski said, but the British government had given the impression to the public that the divorce bill was a punishment to be endured.
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