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| - The European Union on Thursday brushed aside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's push to strike a post-Brexit agreement defining future relations between the two sides by next month. The bloc's UK ambassador told a London conference that "the negotiating table was empty" and an October deadline was more realistic to avoid an economically damaging no-deal split at the end of year. "The United Kingdom has confirmed that they do not want to extend the transition," Joao Vale de Almeida said by video link from Brussels. "If you do a countdown, and you count the need for ratification time, it means that we need to have a deal by, say, the end of October," he said. Britain officially completed its delayed departure from the European integration project on January 31. The sides now have until the end of December to strike a brand new agreement or end their half-century relationship without specific plans for how they intend to trade or coexist in other fields. Relations between London and Brussels will remain largely unchanged throughout this interim stage. Johnson declared Monday that he wanted British businesses to know whether a deal with Brussels was possible "in July". Vale de Almeida's comments suggest that EU negotiators view this timeframe as unrealistic -- as do some of senior members of Johnson's own team. UK Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove told a parliamentary hearing on Thursday that there was no firm cutoff date for the end of the talks. "But it is the case that if we haven't secured significant progress by October, then it will be difficult," said Gove. Any agreement would have to be ratified by the 27 EU member nations and the European and UK parliaments before entering into force. The EU ambassador said Britain's desire to reach a bare-bones agreement that focused on trade and avoided broader issues made the talks even harder. "Sometimes skinny deals are more difficult to negotiate than larger deals," Vale de Almeida said. "In a more comprehensive deal you can find better tradeoffs, you can accomodate different interests," he added. "When you are talking about 28 countries, a comprehensive deal is more likely to produce a consensual result." Johnson personally joined the talks for the first time last week in a self-professed effort to give more "oomph" to the stalled process. Four rounds of negotiations have made little headway. Britain wants to stay as distant from the bloc as possible while still preserving favourable trade ties. Brussels says it will only grant beneficial terms to Britain if it abides by EU rules on environmental standards and other issues that make up a "level playing field". Britain's environment minister George Eustice confirmed Thursday that London was looking to set its own regulations once the post-Brexit transition period ends. "It does give us an opportunity -- once we will get over the shock of leaving the European Union -- the opportunity to start to think about doing things in a different way, innovate in policy in different ways," Eustice told parliament. "We will have an opportunity to do things a bit differently and I think better, and we can demonstrate that." zak/dl
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