Press conference from May and Juncker in Brussels
Juncker is speaking first:
- Sufficient progress has been made in Brexit talks
- Ready to begin work on 2nd phase of Brexit negotiations immediately
- UK PM May assured us that she has backing of UK government for a deal
- Today's Brexit result is a compromise
- Negotiations were difficult for EU as well as for UK
- EU to recommend sufficient progress has been made on the divorce
- Brexit talks can now enter 2nd phase
- EU leaders to make final decision on the progress made
- Hopeful that member states share the same Brexit assessment
- EU ready to begin work immediately on transitional agreement
- We ensure rights for EU citizens in the UK remain
- UK PM May gave her word on citizens rights'
- UK has made significant commitments on avoiding hard Irish border but we still have a lot of work to do
- We have discussed transitional period with UK PM May
GBP/USD is lower as Juncker continues to talk. A little bit of "buy the rumour, sell the fact" action in play. The pair is now down to 1.3473 now after hitting highs of 1.3518 earlier in the day after news broke out that a deal was close to be done and that May is flying to Brussels - as well as DUP confirmation comments.
According to Juncker, we have 477 days until Brexit! Hoorah, more drama still to come.
