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EU officials are preparing for a Brexit “no deal”, a key aide to the bloc’s chief negotiator revealed today.

Brussels, like London, is making contingencies for the UK to crash out without an agreement on a future trade deal, Michel Barnier’s adviser Stefaan de Rynck told the Institute for Government.

He said: “It is not something we want to advertise, oversell.

“There is a clear negative impact from no deal… especially for the UK economy, but it not a scenario that we want to work towards.

(Image: PA)

“We are preparing for it, that is for sure, the 27, but it is not something we in the negotiation room want to bring in that negotiation room.”

Earlier this month(OCT), European Council President Donald Tusk claimed the rest of the bloc was not preparing for a no deal outcome.

“EU27 is not working on ‘no-deal’ scenario,” he said.

“We negotiate in good faith and hope for ‘sufficient progress’ by December.”

The UK is due to leave in March 2019 but is still deadlocked with the EU over the size of Britain’s divorce bill.

(Image: South Wales Echo)

Officials on both sides believe they can switch to trade talks after December’s crunch EU summit.

But the EU team insists “sufficient progress” is needed on the price of the UK’s exit, the Northern Ireland border and citizens’ rights.

Both Britain and Brussels hope a trade deal can be struck by October next year before being approved by the European Parliament and British MPs.

But no pact on the future relationship would see tariffs and quotas slapped on imports and exports, hiking prices and piling costs on manufacturers.

(Image: PA)

Mr de Rynck warned: “In a normal negotiation you try to create value on the table and if you don’t take it, if there is no deal, you both walk away and you have the same situation as before you started negotiating.

“That is not the case in this particular negotiation.

“People have to think through the consequences of that.

“If there is no deal as of April 2019, clearly the UK is for the EU what any other third country in the world which is - you don’t have a preferential trade deal and that has serious consequences.

“It means that the international agreements which are now being discussed that Britain falls out of that - not just trade.”

In a slap down to Brexit Secretary David Davis, he called for “serenity and calmness” in negotiations and insisted Brussels would “certainly want to avoid” talks “going to the wire”.

(Image: REUTERS)

He added: “Brexit is a process and we want to manage it in a calm and rational way.

“I don’t think we need to add risk to that progress by postponing, by playing with time.

“We need to use the time available for the best possible outcome.”

His warning came a day after the Brexit Secretary told MPs the EU “like to use time” as a negotiating tactic.

“If there is a time limit on a negotiation the union stops the clock, it assumes that it’s still at 11.59 until it is concluded, sometimes over the course of 24, 36, 72 hours thereafter, and that’s what I imagine it will be,” he feared.

(Image: REX/Shutterstock)

“And it will be a lot of pressure, very high stress, very exciting for everybody watching.”

Mr Davis also triggered fresh chaos after suggesting MPs may not get a vote on the final deal until after Britain has left.

Senior Tory MP Nicky Morgan earlier warned she was “deadly serious” about backing plans to give the Commons the final say on the Brexit pact.

The Government’s flagship Brexit Bill, transferring EU law onto the UK Statute Book, returns to Parliament on November 14 with MPs having tabled nearly 400 amendments.

A Brexit Department spokesman said: “We are looking at those with the utmost seriousness.”