Theresa May to meet with EU business leaders amid deadlocked Brexit talks - Independent

Theresa May to meet with EU business leaders amid deadlocked Brexit talks

Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI director general, said: 'This is an important meeting because the urgency that is shared by businesses across Europe is growing by the day'

Ashley Cowburn Political Correspondent

Theresa May will meet with European business leaders to discuss the future of UK-EU trade after Brexit as she is warned over the “urgency” to provide firms with certainty in the coming months.

The Prime Minister will use Monday’s meeting to attempt to win support from European businesses for her goal of moving the negotiations on to trade talks before Christmas.

But it comes after Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, warned that the bloc is drawing up contingency plans in case Brexit talks collapse. He said that failing to reach a deal with the UK was not his preferred option but was a “possibility”.

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“Everyone needs to plan for it, member states and businesses alike. We too are making technical preparations for it. On 29 March 2019, the United Kingdom will become a third country,” he told the French publication, Le Journal du Dimanche.

During the meeting in Downing Street on Monday, which the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has helped organised, Ms May will set out her vision of a “bold and deep economic partnership” between the UK and the EU after Brexit.

But the organisations, including Medef of France, Germany’s BDI and Spain’s CEOE, are expected to voice their concern over the progress of the Brexit negotiations.

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Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI director general, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is an important meeting because the urgency that is shared by businesses across Europe is growing by the day.

“The big message today is around mutual interest.”

She added that 10 per cent of firms had enacted their contingency plans to deal with Brexit and another 25 per cent would do so before the end of the year.

A leaders' summit will take place next month and the European Union's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has previously said the moment was approaching for a “real clarification” of Britain's position on issues such as citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's financial settlement.

If the 27 remaining EU members agree next month that sufficient progress has been made on these issues, they will give a green light for negotiations to move on to the questions of trade and transition to a new post-Brexit negotiation.