1) Get ready for a big #Brexit week this week - in Brussels and U.K.
2) European Commission decides today whether or not to delay 2 awaited publications scheduled for Wednesday appearance: paper on future EU-UK relationship and paper on stark EU intentions in case of no deal
3) These 2 papers could be used as carrot/sticks in negotiations but there’s a nervousness in EU circles to get tone right at this delicate coming-to-end-game state of #Brexit proceedings and not to be seen as bullying (remember Salzburg??)
4) EU diplomat tones are determinedly upbeat at the moment - see Jean Claude Juncker’s weekend interviews in Austrian press. Officially EU and U.K. still aiming to get #Brexit deal done and dusted at next week’s EU summit but that frankly would be a miracle
5) If deal nearing completion next week (this, along with all the usual caveats) then EU leaders plan to call a two-day #Brexit seal-the-deal summit in November
6) This is ideal for Theresa May - what she always wanted - Negotiating face to face with EU leaders, rather than with ‘Brussels bureaucrats’ - whether for the actual content of negotiations or for the awaiting cameras, the ‘show’ received by the outside world
7) Main sticking point in the way of closing a deal remains the Irish border backstop. Both EU and U.K. looking where they can move to enable agreement to be reached but an impasse is still v possible
8) The DUP’s Arlene Foster is in Brussels tomorrow - a reminder of the PM’s two big challenges this autumn: i) get a #Brexit deal signed off in Brussels and ii) get a Brexit deal signed off in parliament back home
9) Nervousness about No Deal mounting in EU quarters but French remaining most hardline - as have been consistently throughout negotiations. France’s EU minister threw the PM’s mantra back at her last week, pointing out that for the EU too ‘No deal is better than a bad deal’
