EU finalizes Brexit position as UK threatens to quit talks

Bloomberg

European Union ministers finalized their Brexit negotiating position a day after the UK threatened to quit talks on its departure unless the bloc drops its demands for a divorce payment as high as 100 billion euros ($112 billion).
Governments of 27 remaining nations approved their mandate for EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier at a two-hour meeting in Brussels. The size of Britain’s exit bill, and which types of negotiations can begin before it is determined, has been a source of debate for weeks and will prove an early test of the ability of both sides to find common ground.
Even a 1 billion pound settlement would be “a lot of money,” Brexit Secretary David Davis said in an interview published in the Sunday Times.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has said the UK will have to pay about $65 billion, while Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has signaled a figure between 40 billion euros and 60 billion euros. The Financial Times estimated the cost could balloon to 100 billion euros, while a study by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales put the cost at as low as 5 billion pounds.
As the EU officials gathered, British Prime Minister Theresa May was preparing a speech in Wales to again warn against jeopardizing the Brexit negotiations by electing Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn amid reports the bloc wants talks to begin on June 19, eleven days after the election.
“The UK’s seat at the negotiating table will be filled by me or Jeremy Corbyn,” May said, according to her office. “The deal we seek will be negotiated by me or Jeremy Corbyn. There will be no time to waste and no time for a new government to find its way. So the stakes in this election are high.”
Polls suggest the race is tightening with the Tory advantage over Labour halving to 9 percentage points from 18 percentage points, according to a Survation survey for Good Morning Britain released on Monday.