EU ministers formally appointed Michel Barnier Monday to broker their divorce from the U.K., and adopted detailed negotiating directives for the Brexit talks.

These crucial, if technical, steps taken Monday by the General Affairs Council — a body that has acted mostly as a forum to prepare the ground for EU leaders’ summits — mean that the EU has now cleared all of the bureaucratic hurdles needed to open formal talks. These are currently scheduled to begin the week of June 19 after the U.K.’s June 8 national elections, although could still be delayed.

“We have given him a tall order but the 27 have the utmost confidence, faith and trust in him,” Louis Grech, the deputy prime minister of Malta, who chairs the General Affairs Council, said of Barnier.

Grech said that ministers had swiftly agreed on the key approvals Monday. “The unity and consensus among the 27 is clearly being maintained,” he said.

Senior British officials, including Prime Minister Theresa May, are still voicing some resistance to the insistence by Brussels on strictly “phased” negotiations that would postpone detailed discussions of a free-trade agreement or other future cooperation.

But provisions of the EU treaties covering withdrawal from the bloc, though sparse, as well as a recent decision by the European Court of Justice clarifying the roles of the EU and national legislatures on trade accords, seem to favor the Brussels approach.

Barnier sought to reassure the U.K. that his goal was to move to discussion of the future relationship as quickly and effectively as possible. “The quicker we get agreement on these priority points,” he said, “the quicker we will be able to start negotiating the future relationship in a constructive spirit.” But he dismissed the notion that either side could walk away without a deal — something that British ministers have threatened to do if they don’t get what they want from the talks. “[No deal] is not an option,” said Barnier, “my option is to succeed.”

The negotiating directives approved Monday were largely unchanged from the earlier drafts prepared by the European Commission that put top emphasis on safeguarding citizens rights, reaching a financial settlement, and resolving border issues.

In addition to naming Barnier, a veteran French public official, as negotiator, ministers approved the formation of a Brexit task force within the Council of the European Union, to be led by Didier Seeuws, a Belgian advisor to Council President Donald Tusk.

Officials in Brussels have long made clear that they never wanted the U.K. to leave, and ministers arriving to officially appoint their divorce lawyer were predictably grim. “It’s a lose-lose situation,” Germany’s minister of state for Europe, Michael Roth, said.

If the talks can get underway during the week of June 19 as planned, then Barnier said he hoped to present his first report to the Council on June 22 and 23 — exactly a year after the referendum vote.

Click Here: West Coast Eagles Guernsey