WATCH Theresa May handed Belgium shirt as European leaders condemn Brexit progress
3 min read
Theresa May was ambushed at the start of a crunch EU summit - and presented with the shirt of England's World Cup rivals Belgium.
Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel stunned his UK counterpart by producing the red jersey and handing it to his bemused UK counterpart.
Mr Michel then handed Belgian scarves to European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
The PR coup came just hours before England take on Belgium in a vital World Cup clash in Russia,
It was a brief moment of hilarity after EU leaders had earlier lined up to condemn the lack of progress so far in the Brexit negotiations.
Arriving at the European Commission's Brussels HQ for the summit, Mr Varadkar said: "We did expect that we would make more progress - or any progress, really.
"We expected there would be progress at this summit in June, like there was in March and December. And there hasn’t been. So I will be saying to Prime Minister May we all need to intensify our efforts now. All of us want there to be a deal. We need a deal. Europe needs a deal, Britain needs a deal too."
He also said it would have been "helpful" if the UK government had produced its Brexit white paper - which is finally set to be published next month - two years ago.
Mark Rutte said solving the Irish border issue was key to unlocking the whole negotiation.
He said: "I don’t want to talk in apocalyptic terms. What I want to say is that I believe the first, second and third priority now is to solve this issue of the Irish border. And when that is solved so many other issues will be easier to discuss."
But Mrs May, who will address her fellow leaders on Brexit at a working dinner this evening, insisted the talks were moving forward.
She said: "I look forward to talking with fellow European leaders about the good progress we've made on the withdrawal agreement, and looking forward to securing our strong future partnership which I believe is in the interests of the European Union and the United Kingdom. I think both sides are keen to continue that work at a faster pace than we have done up till now.
"We have been setting out throughout these negotiations our position and at every stage - last December and in March - we have come to agreement on the issues we have discussed and agreed what we will be talking about. We will be bringing the Cabinet together within the next week, we will then be publishing a white paper fleshing out in more detail what strong partnership the United Kingdom wants to see with the European Union in the future."
"I am confident that we can sit down and discuss that at pace and ensure we can achieve what we want."
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