27 EU leaders to discuss Brexit for the first time without a British PM
Britain will feel the effects of its semi-detachment from the European Union on Thursday, when the remaining 27 leaders of the bloc will discuss Brexit over dinner without Prime Minister Theresa May.
May will join them in Brussels and update them on Britain’s preparations to leave the EU, before they depart for dinner for the first time without a British prime minister.
She said that it was only right that the other leaders meet without her.
"I welcome the fact that the other leaders will be meeting to discuss Brexit tonight as we are going to invoke Article 50, trigger the negotiations by the end of March next year. It's right that the other leaders prepare for those negotiations as we have been preparing.
“We will be leaving the EU. We want that to be as smooth and as orderly a process as possible. It's not just in our interests, it's in the interests of the rest of Europe as well”, May said.
On Wednesday, Michel Barnier was appointed chief Brexit negotiator on behalf of the European Commission in order to militate against divisions among the EU member states.
Barnier was previously appointed head of the Commission’s Article 50 task force set up in September.
Earlier the BBC reported that Britain’s ambassador to the EU, Sir Ivan Rogers, told the government that a UK-EU trade deal could take 10 years to finalise and still fail.