Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team UK to reject EU demand for a Brexit bill estimate this week as the talks continue in Brussels… U.K. negotiators are not planning to present their own estimate of financial obligations owed to the EU on Brexit during this week’s round of negotiations, according to a U.K. official familiar with the progress of talks. Despite warnings from EU diplomats that chief negotiator Michel Barnier is prepared to “stall” talks unless proposals are put forward by the U.K., the British side views this week’s round of talks as an opportunity to interrogate the EU’s position, the official said. Their stance is consistent with U.K. Brexit Secretary David Davis’ statement to a House of Lords committee that the “proper approach to get the right outcome in the negotiation” would be to “challenge” the EU’s calculations. – Politico …with the UK set to wait until ‘eleventh hour’ before agreeing any Brexit bill… Last week the UK conceded it did have financial “obligations” to the EU but it is refusing to agree hard numbers until the EU side provides legal justification for demands which British officials have described as “ludicrous” and “outrageous”. Among the disagreements is the EU’s insistence that it will not deduct the UK’s share of the EU’s multi-billion euro asset portfolio when calculating any final bill… British negotiators expect that the EU will find it increasingly difficult to defend their rigid pre-talks positions… The EU has also been briefing that the UK is “not well-prepared” for the talks, a move that is causing irritation in Whitehall which has spent months developing detailed negotiating positions on the rights of EU and UK expats after Brexit, Northern Ireland and the financial package. – Telegraph (£) Britain’s Brexit negotiators pledge to wait for two years before signing off on EU divorce bill – The Sun UK to keep the EU waiting over paying divorce bill: Ministers say they will refuse to settle the figure until a trade deal is offered – Mail British officials vow to challenge every line of EU’s £80bn Brexit bill – Express Margaret Thatcher’s prized ‘rebate’ dragged into Brexit bill talks – FT (£) …as the UK and EU broach the thorny issue of post-Brexit trade rules Brussels and London have started talks on the complex issue of how they will trade globally once they are separate entities within the World Trade Organization, EU officials said today. Officially, trade relations are not on the agenda of U.K.-EU discussions this week but the European Commission is increasingly keen to broach issues that are critical to its strategic trade interests, such as the post-Brexit allocation of import quotas… The goal is to agree on a joint U.K.-EU proposal on [WTO] schedules by autumn. – Politico Brexit talks: meetings overrun but negotiators remain tight-lipped – Telegraph EU says chief negotiators “do not have to be present all the time” after claims Davis “skulked” away The European Commission has said it has no problem with David Davis leaving EU negotiations early, after the Brexit Secretary was accused of “skulking” away. Mr Davis left the latest round of talks with the bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier after an hour-long meeting in Brussels on Monday… But EU Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said: “We do not consider this as a problem and we’re not concerned about it. Chief negotiators do not have to be present all the time, these are well-structured talks over a week, so work is ongoing and we do not feel concerned about this.” …The spokesman said Britain’s 98 negotiators had been welcomed to Brussels and that the Commission has a team of “very good divorce lawyers”. – Sky News Brits outnumber eurocrats two to one: UK in show of force as Brexit talks get under way – Express Theresa May builds business bridge with new council to hear their views on Brexit Theresa May is attempting to build bridges with industry and give it a voice on Brexit by staging a high-powered summit with company bosses and business leaders. The Prime Minister will on Thursday chair a Downing Street meeting between senior ministers and the chief executives of some of the UK’s biggest companies – including Tesco’s Dave Lewis and Prudential’s Paul Manduca – and most influential trade bodies… The new business council – which is expected to hold regular meetings with top politicians – is being formed less than a year after Ms May disbanded a similar body set up by David Cameron and comes amid extreme disquiet within industry about being “shut out” by government. – Telegraph May to hold first meeting of new business council – FT (£) Davis’s attempt at business charm offensive fails – The Times (£) Hammond ‘welcomes’ opportunity to work with Labour on leaving EU Philip Hammond has said he welcomes the opportunity to work with other parties to reach a consensus on leaving the EU – as he dismissed reports of colleagues briefing against him. Confronted with reports that Mr Hammond is prepared to champion a longer transition period for Britain to remain in the tariff-free single market, the Chancellor said he welcomed the opportunity to work with other parties on Britain’s exit from the bloc… But asked… to assure MPs he was “absolutely, personally and enthusiastically committed” to leaving the single market and customs union, the Chancellor replied confirmed he was, adding: “Those are matters of legal necessity”. – Independent > WATCH Hammond: We can strike trade deals and keep EU trade Scots academics and politicians in call to stop Brexit Scores of Scotland’s most high-profile academics and politicians have called for last year’s Brexit vote to be overturned as “its disastrous consequences become clearer every day”. Senior figures from the worlds of politics, business, academia and the arts have signed a landmark letter to The Herald [and the FT] breaking a fragile consensus accepting the referendum. Big political names on the letter include former Labour first minister Henry McLeish; his Liberal Democrat deputy Jim Wallace; SNP MEP Alyn Smith; and former Tory MEP Struan Stevenson. – Herald Author of Article 50 calls for Brexit to be stopped – FT (£) Letters: Why we believe it is time to call a halt on Brexit – Herald UK’s ‘readiness for change’ rating boosts Brexit hopes Britain has been ranked 10th in global index of the nations most ready for political and economic change, easing concerns the UK will struggle to deal with financial uncertainty caused by Brexit, according to a major international study. The Global Change Readiness Index produced by KPMG examines 30 indicators across 136 nations, gauging countries’ ability to deal with upheaval… The UK was ranked highly in enterprise potential, coming seventh overall, and in societal robustness, where it placed eighth. Government capability was also strong, rating 13th. “Our country’s spirit of entrepreneurialism, mastery of technology and renowned business environment all point to a long-term, collective, ability to rebuild our economy after Brexit,” said Karen Briggs, head of Brexit at KPMG. – Telegraph New survey puts Britain in top ten list of countries ready for global change – Express UK inflation drops to 2.6pc – Telegraph Brexit no deterrent as Swedish Bank Handelsbanken targets UK growth – Bloomberg Owen Paterson: Spiteful protectionism by Brussels helps no-one and Germans are realising this Last year, 950,000 newly-registered cars in the UK were German. In the first year after the UK leaves, it has been predicted that the imposition of tariffs would see German car exports to the UK collapse by a third, with 18,000 jobs in the German car industry put at direct risk. Spiteful protectionism by the Commission is in no one’s interest, and German politicians are realising this. The Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs, Ilse Aigner, has said “Great Britain is one of the most important trading partners in Bavaria. We must do everything we can to eliminate the uncertainties that have arisen.” She subsequently called for extensive new trade agreements between the EU and Great Britain: “There must be ways to re-establish economic relations with Great Britain without breaks.” – Owen Paterson MP for the Telegraph Hans-Olaf Henkel: EU’s Barnier and Verhofstadt are out to punish Britain Mr Verhofstadt is an ambitious politician who wants to achieve a United States of Europe. In my view, he is responsible in no small part for the disaster of Brexit. It was his attitude, not typical of most of us in Brussels, that allowed Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson to whip up anti-EU sentiment in the UK. Mr Verhofstadt now wants to punish the British, full stop. He says he doesn’t want to, but I’m afraid he does. My impression is that Mr Barnier wants to do the same. The reason is simple. They would seek to make sure that Brexit is such a catastrophe that no country dares to take the step of leaving the EU again. This is a terrible situation for us all. In my country, Germany, we value the ties we have with the British and we value your voice in Europe. – Hans-Olaf Henkel MEP for The Times (£) Brussels chiefs want to punish Britain, says top German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel – The Times (£) Tom Harris: Labour’s cultists may say they like the EU – but they will always love Jeremy Corbyn more The problem, of course, is that no one is 100 per cent sure of what Labour Party policy is on Brexit, and no amount of journalists’ interrogation has yet managed to elicit from the leader anything that smacks remotely of either (a) an actual position on single market and customs union membership, or (b) any evidence that suggests Corbyn understands what the single market or customs union actually are… But suggestions that such a difference in policy between the grassroots and the leadership is somehow a fault line in the Labour Party, that it presages an almighty showdown some time in the near future, are wide of the mark. – Tom Harris for the Telegraph (£) Rebecca Lowe Coulson: At what point would Remainers give up on the EU – if ever? The uber-Remainers praying for disaster don’t understand that Britain doing well post-Brexit isn’t in our self-interest, alone. They want so badly to be right, that they don’t care if their nightmares bring us all down – Europe, too. The obvious point, which, for me, has always been at the heart of all this is that you can love Europe and dislike the EU. You can dislike the EU for the very reason that you love Europe: in the interests of your neighbours, your allies, your friends… Those like Blair are still painting this debate as the sensible versus the loons, the centre versus the extreme, Europe versus Britain. But it’s not. You can be as left, as right, as centrist as you want, and see that the EU isn’t working for many people – and often, the least advantaged. – Rebecca Lowe Coulson for ConservativeHome The Times: Macron’s ambitions could be bad news for the City of London France’s newfound confidence could spell trouble for the City of London. Mr Macron speaks openly of the opportunities Brexit presents. On a campaign visit to London, he said that he wanted Britain’s “banks, talents, researchers, academics and so on”… In a recently leaked memo Jeremy Browne, the City of London’s envoy to the EU, wrote that France’s objective in Brexit negotiations was to weaken Britain and degrade the City. As one diplomat said: “France screwed us on the way in [to the Common Market] and they’ll screw us on the way out.” – The Times editorial (£) Jeremy Warner: Brexit is the least of Europe’s problems: how Germany is picking up the tab for Southern Europe’s burgeoning debt pile Set against the challenges of extraction from the euro, merely leaving the EU should be a stroll in the park. Participating member states find themselves locked in, none more so than Germany, trapped in a Latinised eurozone where the region’s debt obligations are increasingly mutualised between nations by an all powerful European Central Bank. No prizes for guessing who picks up the tab – the eurozone’s most credit worthy nation, Germany… For the first time since the financial crisis, a fully fledged cyclical recovery has taken hold across the Continent. Yet our friends across the Channel should enjoy the schadenfreude while it lasts, for below the surface, the eurozone is incubating another lorry load of trouble. – Jeremy Warner for the Telegraph (£) Brexit comment in brief Brexit: A Prize in Reach for the Left – Professor Richard Tuck and Caroline Flint MP for Policy Exchange Britain should aim for an EEA transitional period – Philip Johnston for the Telegraph (£) The EU is making poor countries poorer – Joseph Hackett for Get Britain Out The Conservative party must stop squabbling and rally round Theresa May – Express editorial Gavin Barwell: Theresa May’s Mr. Nice Guy – Annabelle Dickson for Politico This Government should tear up its immigration policy and start again – Steven Woolfe MEP for the Express Can Brexit be stopped? Not by a second referendum – Polly Toynbee for the Guardian How the single market got in the way of our art market – John Redwood’s Diary Believe it or not, Britain is getting happier – Paul Ormerod for City A.M. Hosting Donald Trump has done France proud. Britain should take note – Lord Hague for the Telegraph (£) Five areas where France and Germany can’t agree – Nicholas Vinocur for Politico Brexit news in brief Former PM David Cameron encourages Theresa May to ‘keep on going’ during No10 pep talk and says he’s desperate for Brexit to succeed – The Sun Theresa May under pressure to drop migration target after warning over Brexit recruitment crisis – Independent Donald Trump has contacted May more than any other world leader – Express UK fights energy plans that won’t kick in until after Brexit – Politico Financial regulator hits pause button with Brussels – The Times (£) EU chief Tajani orders Poland to respect Brussels’ principles after passing judiciary laws – Express Dutch nationals taking UK citizenship ‘will lose Netherlands passports’ – Guardian