EU Council will be too late to negotiate Brexit deal: French source

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, a French diplomatic source said on Thursday. The French warning comes after President Emmanuel Macron met the Finnish prime minister 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," the source said. Finnish media cited Prime Minister Antti Rinne as saying he and Macron had agreed an end-September deadline for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to present Europe with a concrete proposal to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

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

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