LONDON _ British and European negotiators are working through the night to hammer out the final part of the Brexit deal as Theresa May fights to keep a crunch summit on Sunday on track.
Last week, May got an agreement with the European Union on the divorce terms and the negotiations are now focused on the future post-Brexit trade agreement. She met EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday and they made progress on the terms of the agreement, according to officials on both sides.
But the text is still not finished. After meeting Juncker for an hour and 50 minutes, May announced that she will return to Brussels for last-minute talks on Saturday, just a day before EU leaders are due to sign off on the deal. That wasn't expected.
Negotiating teams are now planning to work through the night Wednesday to get the draft accord ready, one official said.
"We have given direction to our negotiators this evening. The work on those issues will now start immediately," May told the BBC. "I believe we have been able to give sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues."
If they don't, there's a chance EU leaders could cancel the gathering, which would deal a major blow to May's hopes of concluding the negotiations by the end of November. Britain is due to exit the bloc of 28 countries on March 29, with or without a deal.
EU diplomats in Brussels were told to expect the draft political declaration by midnight Wednesday, and EU envoys were to discuss the text Thursday morning, a person familiar with the matter said. It's unclear whether a draft _ or at least parts of it _ will be circulated, following the failure to resolve outstanding issues.
Officials had warned that if the text wasn't ready by Thursday morning, then the summit was at risk. Still, EU deadlines have a habit of slipping. Nevertheless, EU ambassadors expect to receive a draft at 10:30 a.m. in advance of a meeting with Sabine Weyand, the EU's deputy chief negotiator.
A handful of tricky issues remain outstanding in the 20-page outline of the future trade and security agreement between Britain and the EU. These include the future of Gibraltar, over which Spain wants a say, fishing rights and security.
Spain will seek to veto the accord if its objections to the text on future negotiations on Gibraltar aren't addressed, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said in a news conference in Valladolid. Spain has said it can't endorse the agreement unless it's made clear that talks on the future relationship with Gibraltar will be a separate negotiation process that Spain must endorse.
The EU's two most powerful countries, Germany and France, are divided over the Sunday summit. While German Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to attend unless the deal is already sealed, French President Emmanuel Macron wants the opportunity to discuss the text himself, rather than leave it to lower-level officials, diplomats with knowledge of the discussions said.
At home, May's political position remains precarious. She is battling adversaries in her own Conservative Party who are plotting to oust her while members of her Cabinet are pushing her get a better deal.
The withdrawal deal agreed on last week is unpopular with lawmakers, and the signs are the House of Commons will reject it when it's put to a vote. All opposition parties have said they'll oppose it, as have rank-and-file Conservatives from both the Brexiteer and Remainer wings. May's nominal allies in Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, which have propped up her minority government, have also said they'll vote it down.
The DUP "wants to remain committed to the confidence and supply" deal between the two parties but it's a "two-way street," the party's deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, said late Wednesday in an interview on ITV's "Peston" program. "We've got to warn the government that there's two sides to this bargain."
Conscious of the threat, May has repeatedly said rejection of the agreement could lead to either a no-deal departure _ the outcome Remainers most want to avoid _ or no Brexit at all. She was backed up on Wednesday by Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, who told Robert Peston, ITV's political editor, that if Parliament rejects the deal, "we will have a politically chaotic situation."
"For those who are passionately committed to ensuring that we leave the EU on the 29th of March 2019, one of the things that they are going to have to bear in mind is the possibility that in that chaos that will ensue, there may be no Brexit," Hammond said.
