The president of Lithuania is known for her refreshing honesty and she wasnt pulling her punches when she summed up Theresa Mays latest Brexit talks.
Straight-talking Dalia Grybauskaitė confirmed there was no moment of truth in Brussels as the negotiations hit another stalemate.
She said: We do not know what they want, they do not know themselves what they really want – thats the problem.
If you have a negotiator who has no strong mandate, its very difficult to negotiate.
Ouch.
Despite all this, Mrs May says she is still convinced she will get a deal on Britains withdrawal from the EU.
The Prime Minister infuriated MPs from all sides of her party by indicating she is ready to delay the UKs final departure until 2021 in the hope of breaking the deadlock over the Irish border.
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Just a month after the humiliating Salzburg summit, where her Brexit proposals were roundly dismissed by EU leaders, Mrs May admitted there were more difficult moments to come before agreement is reached.
But she said she had found a very real sense that people want that deal done among her fellow leaders.
The two-day European Council summit was expected to be a moment of truth for both sides reaching agreement.
But no deal was reached, and the leaders of the 27 remaining EU states decided not to call a special Brexit summit in November after chief negotiator Michel Barnier said he needed much more time for talks.
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In a press conference at the end of the summit, Mrs May said good progress was being made on the UKs withdrawal agreement, but acknowledged that a few, but considerable, outstanding issues remained to be resolved.
There is a lot of hard work ahead, there will be more difficult moments as we enter the final stages of the talks, but Im convinced we will secure a good deal that is in the interests of the UK and of the European Union, she said.
Mrs May declined to put any fixed date on the possible extension to the UKs transition period, which she has said could last a matter of months into 2021.
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