A top EU diplomat warned Monday it was getting dangerously late to secure a post-Brexit trade deal as a week of crucial talks began in Brussels.
The clock is ticking towards December 31 when a post-Brexit transition phase ends and the UK and Europe will need a trade deal to govern ties -- or face economic chaos.
The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his UK counterpart David Frost are in Brussels in hopes of reaching an agreement after eight months of mostly fruitless talks.
"Let's see if there will be an agreement. We can't tell at this stage whether this will be by the end of this week, or whenever -- or at all," the senior envoy said.
"This is already getting extremely late," he told reporters on condition of anonymity.
With a late October deadline already blown, a deal is needed urgently to allow time for legal vetting, translations and ratification by the European Parliament, whose last scheduled meeting of the year is on December 16.
The diplomat warned that "creative solutions" would be needed if a deal was delivered too late. Any accord would require two to three weeks of legal work before a vote by MEPs.
"We work very hard to get a deal, but there is still quite a lot to do," said Frost as he arrived for a session of talks with Barnier.