UK will have 18 months to negotiate Brexit deal, EU negotiator says

Britain will have only 18 months to extricate itself from the EU and will not be able to “cherry pick” the rights it wants, the bloc’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Tuesday.

Barnier, in his first speech since being appointed head of the EU’s Article 50 taskforce, said that he was aiming for a deal by October 2018, giving six months for approval by the remaining 27 member states, the European Parliament and the UK.

"At the beginning, the two years included the time for the council to set guidelines and to authorise negotiations. At the end, the agreement must of course be approved by the Council and European Parliament. Finally the UK will have to approve the agreement - all within the two year period.

"All in all there will be less than 18 months to negotiate. That is short. Should the UK notify by the end of March as Prime Minister Theresa May said she would, it is safe to say negotiations could start a few weeks later and an Article 50 reached by October 2018."

He said that the goal for the 27 members was to preserve unity within the block while he maintained that non-EU countries could not have the same rights and benefits as those in the EU.

Britain could not “cherry pick” its benefits regarding access to the single market while the EU’s four freedoms of goods, services, capital and labour were not indivisible.

He said there was a "common interest in not prolonging this state of uncertainty” and that a “short transitional agreement” could be reached but Britain has not indicated what type of relationship it wants with the EU.

“We need to hear what the UK’s intentions are and then the 27 will react to that.”

Norway model, he said, could possibly be adopted - access to the single market with contributions to the EU budget.

The Frenchman added: “Frankly, I do not know what a hard or a soft Brexit is. I can say what Brexit is”.