“I see in several [of the U.K.’s] proposals a certain nostalgia, through precise demands, which would amount to wanting to continue to benefit from the advantages of the EU’s single market without being part of it,” the EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, said at a joint news conference Thursday to wrap up the latest, abbreviated round of talks, which lasted just two days. [...]
Davis also publicly declared a frustration that U.K. officials have voiced privately for weeks — their view that the EU27 are being overly rigid in their demands and have given Barnier and his team no flexibility to compromise. Again repeating his line that the EU’s rigid sequencing of the talks (divorce first, future relationship second) makes no sense, Davis implored his interlocutor to put “people over process.” [...]
That the two sides remain so bitterly divided on the issues that the EU identified as the core divorce terms makes it increasingly unlikely that the European Council at its summit on October 19-20 will determine that “sufficient progress” has been made to move on to the next phase of talks, including a future trade relationship and potential transition period.
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