EU boss Donald Tusk warns ‘much more work needed’ on Brexit Bill and Northern Ireland before trade talks as David Davis lashes out at EU bosses for holding up progress
THERESA MAY's hopes to start talking about an EU trade deal next month have been dashed after EU boss Donald Tusk warned that Britain must make "much more progress" first.
He gave Theresa May an extra two weeks to make big strides on our divorce bill and the issue of the Northern Ireland border.
In a press conference this afternoon he told reporters that we were still way off starting to discuss trade.
"We will be ready to move on to the second phase already in December, but in order to do that we need to see more progress from the UK side,"he explained.
"While good progress on citizens' rights is being made, we need to see much more progress on Ireland and on the financial settlement."
He added that this "needs to happen at the beginning of December at the latest".
And in a scathing put-down, he went on to say said he "really appreciated" David Davis' "humour" after the Brexit Secretary said earlier that it was the EU who needed to compromise, not us.
Speaking to the BBC this morning, Mr Davis said Britain would not back down without the EU making concessions, saying: "I want them to compromise.... nothing comes for nothing."
He said "we have made a lot of compromises" and Britain had "done the running" on citizens rights and other issues.
And he stressed that many of Europe's countries do want us to get on with the next part of Brexit talks.
"Many of them do want to move on," he insisted. "Countries like Denmark, Holland, Italy and Spain... Countries like Poland can see big benefits in the future deal we’re talking about."
But Germany and France, who are "the most powerful players on the European continent" are "very influential" in the process Mr Davis added in a swipe at other European leaders who are reported to be holding us up.
The EU's Donald Tusk met Theresa May this morning for crunch talks ahead of the bloc's council meeting next month.
He will meet her again in a week's time.
Both agreed that "more work" needs to be done on Brexit to move forwards.
European Commission chief Jean Claude Juncker said that "the clock is ticking".
He added: "I hope that we will be able to come to an agreement as far as the divorce is concerned at the December council (summit) but work has still to be done."
Failure to move on in December would push trade talks back to February or March, and would completely throw off the Brexit timetable.
EU sources said yesterday that Mr Tusk will tell the Prime Minister that "a positive scenario is not a given, will require more work, and that time is short".
Sweden's Stefan Lofven, said Mrs May needs to clarify what the financial settlement would cover, and it was "very difficult to say" whether trade talks would be given the go-ahead.
The Sun revealed that Theresa May is prepared to cough up an extra £20bn in our Brexit bill to guarantee that we can finally begin to discuss a trade deal.
Brexit bosses in Whitehall hope the offer means talks about the future relationship can finally be given the green light when all EU leaders meet on December 14.
But she faces a cabinet battle after reports today that Boris Johnson and David Davis have urged her to hold off some money to use next year during the trade talks phase.
Meanwhile, Ireland could need up to FIVE YEARS to get ready for Brexit, the country's Foreign Minister has said.
Simon Coveney said today after a meeting with Boris Johnson that talks are not ready to move on to trade - as we are still no nearer to solving the Northern Ireland border issue.
He told reporters: "We all want to move on to phase two, but we are not in a place to do that."
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