European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker | Patrick Hertzog/AFP via Getty Images EU taxpayers should not pay for Brexit, says Jean-Claude Juncker The European Commission president said there had not yet been sufficient progress in the Brexit talks.

EU taxpayers should not be made to pay for the U.K.’s decision to leave the bloc, the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the European Parliament in a short speech beginning a debate on Brexit.

Speaking at the plenary session in Strasbourg, Juncker repeated his assertion that, “we have not yet made sufficient progress,” in the Brexit talks following the fourth round held in Brussels last week. And he emphasized his intention to stick to the bloc’s hard lines on key divorce issues. "The taxpayers of the EU27 should not pay for the British decision," he told MEPs.

The president remarked on the "optimistic note" struck by Prime Minister Theresa May in her speech in Florence last month but said, "Speeches are not negotiating positions," adding that “The devil will be as always in the details.”

Juncker said that he recognized there had been progress on some issues in the talks last week, notably on the rights of EU citizens in the U.K. but he said they had yet to agree the "indispensable role" of the European Court of Justice in guaranteeing those rights.

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, sitting to Juncker's left, echoed the president's comments, adding that discussions will be needed "on what the new period of transition would be." Barnier also said the EU's behavior "will remain resolutely constructive" in the fifth round of negotiations next week, "because we want to succeed.”

The Parliament will vote on a resolution on Brexit later today.