BRUSSELS — The president of the European Council, Donald Tusk, had asked Theresa May to bring “new facts” to a summit of EU leaders to unlock the stalemate in Brexit talks.

She didn’t bring many.

Addressing the 27 EU leaders in a speech lasting about 15 minutes, May reiterated her commitment to a legally operative backstop in Northern Ireland, but failed to put a new solution on the table.

“She basically said ‘let us be creative’,” a senior European government official told BuzzFeed News in a text message.

The official described May’s tone as “optimistic, non-antagonistic”, but when asked whether the prime minister’s intervention would change anything, they replied: “nothing.”

After May had finished, she left the room to no reaction, and the 27 leaders dined without her.

During the discussion that followed, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, repeated earlier words that “much more time” was needed to conclude the negotiations.

The 27 leaders renewed their full backing of Barnier, and the need for a backstop if a deal is to be concluded before Brexit day in March 2019. However, a leader from a major eurozone country stressed that no-deal would be bad for Ireland too, a senior government official said.

Negotiations have run aground on the issue of the so-called backstop, an insurance policy to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland under all circumstances. Britain wants the backstop to be time-limited, and to apply to the whole UK. The EU demands it be all-weather, applicable until and unless there is another workable solution in place, and for parts of it to be unique to Northern Ireland.

The latest ideas floated by the EU include an offer to extend the transition period by 12 months into 2021, and a softer rebranding of the backstop, which would see the EU’s insurance policy used only if an alternative — that envisions the UK in a customs union with the EU, and Northern Ireland remaining, in effect, in the EU’s single market for goods — and a future trade deal aren’t agreed in time.

The president of the European parliament Antonio Tajani told reporters on Wednesday evening that the parliament was in favour of extending the transition period to three years.

May later confirmed to reporters that the idea of extending the transition period "for a matter of months" was under consideration but "not expected to be used". The 27 leaders didn’t take a decision on extending the transition on Wednesday, a senior European government official told BuzzFeed News.

May concluded her speech saying that “courage, trust and leadership” were needed. According to the senior official she told leaders that, if the UK and the EU didn’t reach a deal “those outside the EU who claim the current world order is crumbling will cheer. We don’t want them to do that.”