Negotiations between Britain and the EU are unlikely to start until June now that Theresa May intends to trigger article 50 at the end of March, senior European diplomats have disclosed.



The delay would eat into the two-year negotiation window for Britain to reach a deal with the EU or crash out on WTO terms, which include tariffs on UK imports to the continent.



Leaders of the remaining 27 states had initially planned to offer a substantial response to the article 50 notification at a European council summit on 6 April. But as a result of the UK’s decision they have ruled that out.



The news came as the European council president, Donald Tusk, warned the UK against making no-deal Brexit threats, insisting: “They simply will not work.”

A meeting of the council – made up of representatives of EU member states – will not now be held until the end of May, sources said. “Unless [May] triggers on Monday next week, then 6 April cannot be the start of it – absolutely not,” said one EU diplomat.



“Instead we are looking at the end of May for the meeting of the European council. Negotiations then start in June.”

Bloomberg quoted European officials saying that a subsequent 20 June meeting was now the latest moment for a start date to be finalised. The new timeline will be a blow for the British government, which hopes to negotiate both a withdrawal agreement with the EU and a comprehensive free trade deal in the diminishing period available for talks.

Once article 50 negotiations are triggered, there are only two years available in which to negotiate, and it is believed that there will need to be at least six months to play with at the end of the process to ensure that it can be ratified by qualified majority of the council, and that the European parliament is able to give its consent.

May has said she is willing to leave without coming to an agreement, claiming “no deal is better than a bad deal”. But on Wednesday, the European council president, Donald Tusk, told the European parliament: “The claims increasingly taking the form of threats that no agreement will be good for the UK and bad for the EU needs to be addressed.”

“A no-deal scenario would be bad for everyone, but above all for the UK because it would leave a number of issues unresolved. We will not be intimidated by threats and I can assure you they simply will not work,” said Tusk, who tweeted in similar terms.

We will not be intimidated by threats that no #Brexit deal is good for UK & bad for EU. No deal bad for everyone, above all for UK. — Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) March 15, 2017

Once the council at its meeting in May has provided a broad political response to the UK, along with a framework for the talks, known as the guidelines, the European commission will then recommend to the council that the negotiations begin.



Bloomberg reported that the 20 June meeting in Luxembourg has been pencilled in for the final part of the process, during which the detailed response of the member states will be formulated to aid the commission’s negotiating team.

Under that plan, it would only be then that the commission’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, and the UK’s Brexit secretary, David Davis, sit down in earnest.

However, diplomats said it might not be necessary to wait for a meeting of the general affairs council to finalise the EU27’s position. “We can probably do it before 20 June; there might be flexibility,” the source said.

It is understood that the commission is equally as doubtful that the process need be delayed into late June, although the timeline is largely out of its hands.

May had been expected to notify the European council on Tuesday of the UK’s intention to withdraw but it has been widely suggested that Downing Street was spooked by the declaration of Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, that she intended to hold a referendum on Scottish independence as early as autumn 2018.

Downing Street has denied these claims and indicated that Britain had always intended to notify the European council after the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the EU, to be held in Rome on 25 March. One British government figure told reporters: “I’ve said ‘end’ [of March] many times but it would seem I didn’t put it in capital letters quite strongly enough.”