EU Council will be ‘too late’ to negotiate Brexit deal, French diplomats say

Time to agree a Brexit deal is running out and it will be too late for European leaders to iron out a deal at a European Council meeting in Brussels in mid October, Reuters quoted a French diplomatic source as saying on Thursday.

The warning comes after President Emmanuel Macron met Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne in Paris on Wednesday. “The idea was to say that time is running out and that we won’t be negotiating directly at the European Council in mid-October,” according to the source.

Finnish media cited Rinne as saying he and Macron had agreed an end-of-September deadline for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to present Europe with a concrete proposal to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

The source added that this had been the message already conveyed by Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month.