Hello and welcome to Brexit Republic, RTE's podcast on Brexit.

I'm Tony Connolly, RTE's Europe editor in Brussels.

And I'm Colom amonggone RTE's Deputy Foreign Editor, normally in Dublin, but currently at home in Kildare, due to the coronavirus.

Each week, Brexit Republic assesses all the latest Brexit developments in Brussels,

London and in Dublin. This week, another round of negotiations in London on the future EU-UK

relationship under the new format. We look at what's being achieved in these meetings and what the

big stumbling blocks are. And we'll explain why if there's to be an October breakthrough,

then it has to happen in July. And we'll find out why the UK Trade Secretary Liz Truss has been writing

angry letters on the Brexit border policy and the Northern Ireland Protocol. And we look at what role

Brexit will play in the EU's 750 billion euro coronavirus recovery plan. But first, Tony, as we were saying earlier there in the intro, what has been achieved,

if anything, in the talks during the week in London.

Are we still in stalemate, at least it seems that way, in terms of the public utterances

by Michelle Barnier yesterday?

Yeah, it does seem that way.

We've kind of got into a pattern now where you have

rounds of negotiations followed by polite but downbeat assessments of what has happened and

those come from both the EU and the UK chief negotiators. Remember, this new format was

effectively endorsed by Boris Johnson and the leaders of the EU institutions

after that meeting on the 16th of July, June, this so-called high-level conference, which

was taking stock of where the negotiations had gone.

So we'd had four negotiating rounds before that with gaps in between and they

hadn't really delivered any breakthrough to speak of. So this new format is much more intense.

...