Sky Views: Nothing is certain in Brexit negotiations
Faisal Islam, Political Editor
There were some glum faces around the table in Brussels as the UK and European Commission negotiating teams attempted to make progress on Ireland and the border.
The discussions on maintaining the current open border with Ireland after Brexit were difficult and sufficiently tense that some feared a walkout.
UK negotiators have still not detailed their plans for the border within, or without, a free trade agreement with the EU.
But the Barnier team is viewed by Britain to have jumped the gun in spelling out the "fallback option" of essentially extending the single market for goods to a post Brexit Northern Ireland.
For his part, when questioned by Belfast politicians, the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier suggested he was only doing what he could do in detailing the full alignment option, given that other British-led options were not materialising.
The question now, in the fortnight before the March European Council, is whether the lack of progress on the Irish issue becomes the rationale for more delay.
Visiting Dublin on Friday, Council President Donald Tusk suggested this, saying that the Brexit negotiation would be about "Ireland first".
Intervention was less about negotiations being frozen and more a rejection of attempts to isolate the Irish issue with trilateral talks.
But there are those in the EU27 who anticipate that there will be an informal linkage between lack of progress on Ireland and a strong political statement on transition and the future partnership.
The economic damage from a failure to agree a standstill transition in March will be substantial.
It would mean many 12-month business contracts having to be signed without certainty as to the precise legal situation in the UK after 29 March, 2019.
It would affect all EU economies, but it is the UK side that wants and needs this now.
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