UK bows to EU pressure
Britain accepted the European Union's timetable for Brexit talks on Monday, in an apparent climbdown on the first day of formal negotiations in Brussels.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said the talks with Brexit minister David Davis, which are starting a full year after Britain's seismic vote to leave, had started "on the right foot".
In carefully choreographed talks that even saw the two men exchange mountaineering gifts, they agreed to discuss divorce issues before negotiations on a future trade deal can start.
These include the thorny issues of Britain's estimated 100-billion-euro ($112 billion) exit bill, the rights of EU citizens living in Britain, and the fate of the border in Northern Ireland.
But the agreement appeared at odds with British Prime Minister Theresa May's earlier insistence that the divorce and the future relationship should be discussed in parallel.
Frenchman Barnier struck a firm tone as he said the timetable for Britain's divorce after four troubled decades of membership made sense.
"If you ask me are we going to make concessions, I must tell you that it is the UK that is leaving the EU, the single market, the customs union and not the other way around," the former European commissioner and French foreign minister told a joint press conference with Davis.
Davis said the talks were off to a "promising start" and denied that Britain had caved in on the sequencing of the talks.
"That position hasn't changed, it's the same as it was before," said Davis, a tough-talking figure in the "Leave" campaign in last year's Brexit referendum.
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