Updated at 1.15pm with EU 'green light' developments
It is time British Prime Minister Theresa May got down to brass tacks and explained in detail what she expects from Brexit negotiations with the European Union, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat told an EU Council meeting in Brussels.
Dr Muscat said that everything indicated that the Council would give the green light for Brexit negotiations to proceed to a second phase, following an initial agreement reached earlier this month.
The Council, he said, had always followed the recommendations made by the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier, and Malta agreed with this stance. It was now up to the UK to say precisely what it wanted, Dr Muscat said, noting that Mrs May had been relatively vague in her much-quoted Florence speech last September.
Dr Muscat and Mrs May held a brief meeting on the fringes of the EU Council meeting on Thursday.
A security cooperation agreement between the EU and UK would most likely pose relatively few challenges to reach, he said, with both sides keen to ensure they continued to protect each other.
A free trade agreement, on the other hand, will be a tougher nut to crack. Dr Muscat said he expected the UK to now define what it expected in this sphere.
Defence cooperation
Dr Muscat also touched upon Malta's decision to opt out of the EU's new defence agreement, saying his government was steering clear to avoid any potential conflicts with Malta's constitutional neutrality clause.
He said that while there most likely would be no conflict between the two, it remained unclear whether the PESCO agreement would function simply as a means of better coordinating the sale and purchase of armaments, or whether it would assume a more military hue.
Malta, he noted, could always invoke a solidarity clause within the EU treaty to seek military help from other member states should the need arise.
Migration
The Maltese Prime Minister also spoke about migration, saying that while Malta had fulfilled 100 per cent of its migrant quota pledge, other countries could not say the same thing.
He acknowledged that it was always going to be difficult to convince member states to take in a fixed number of migrants, and said that member states would be having a long, hard talk about the issue at an EU Council meeting next June.
EU gives green light for next phase of Brexit talks
The European Union agreed on Friday to move talks forward with London on Britain's exit from the bloc as leaders warmed to the British premier.
On the second day of a summit in Brussels, leaders said that "sufficient progress" was made after a deal on citizens' rights, the Irish border and Britain's outstanding payments, giving negotiators a mandate to move onto the main phase of talks.
"EU leaders agree to move on to the second phase of Brexit talks. Congratulations PM Theresa May," European Council president Donald Tusk, who chairs EU summits, said on Twitter.