It was the shortest leaders’ dinner veteran summit-goers could recall. The evening meal of pan-fried mushrooms, fillet of turbot and a trio of fruit sorbets was fairly wolfed down by the EU’s 27 heads of state and government around the oval dining table on the 11th floor of the lantern-shaped Europa building in Brussels.

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron even had time for a post-prandial stroll on an unseasonably warm Brussels evening, before hopping in a car to the Grand Place’s Le Roy d’Espagne bar to join the prime ministers of Belgium and Luxembourg for a beer.

This had been earmarked as the meaty summit, with long discussions going late into the evening, hopefully ending in a champagne moment. Earlier in the day, Theresa May had told reporters of the great progress that had been made. Michel Barnier, however, could only offer the leaders some unpalatable truths as they picked over their fish. There was no indication that a deal was possible given the British prime minister’s vulnerability at home. May had offered nothing new in what leaders had described as a nervy 15-minute address in an ante room on the third floor, leaving little for them to chew on. The prime minister had optimistically claimed that a deal was in reach at the start of her presentation - only to end with a “cry for help” in which she emphasised the difficulties of her predicament at home, one EU diplomat said. The time was at hand to step up preparations for a no-deal Brexit, the leaders agreed. The conditions were not right for a November summit. A December summit was looking like the last opportunity to save the day.

“There is a certain difference in the assessment of where we are now,” admitted an EU official of the conclusions reached by the leaders at the end of their two-hour dinner. “Where May certainly has to a certain extent a positive assessment of where we are, focused on the considerable progress that has been made on a number of issues, and emphasises that a deal is in reach, I think the collective feeling among the EU 27, I would say, is somewhat more sceptical and notes the lack of progress or at least the lack of agreement at this stage.”

Following presentations by Barnier and the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, 12 leaders made interventions over the dinner. The most notable was that of the Irish Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, who brandished an Irish Times article on the 1972 IRA bombing of a border customs post as he sought to stiffen the resolve of his political peers and highlight the risks of giving way on the border problem that has so dogged the negotiations. But it wasn’t necessary, diplomats said.

“This is very serious and critical,” said an official. “It is an important and critical moment in the talks. The leaders were very clear [at the summit in] Salzburg that they had hoped for virtually an agreement on the withdrawal agreement having been reached by now and that could have been formalised and finalised in this November summit. That is not where we are and they took note of that and it is for Barnier to take the talks forward.”

The headline news of the summit was the British prime minister’s indication that she would be open to the EU’s offer of an extension of the transition period “by a few months” to offer some assurances at home that the backstop keeping Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs union and single market after Brexit would never come into force. No one, however, was left under any assurance that the Gordian knot of ensuring that a hard Irish border would not return could be unpicked. Juncker suggested to the leaders that they needed to help May, without spelling out how.

“The same problems remain, and it is up to the British to sort out the mess,” an EU official said. “I trust you haven’t got any plans for Christmas.”



