EU, British negotiators hail major progress on Brexit deal

BRUSSELS (AP) — Negotiators from the European Union and Britain on Monday hailed major progress in the Brexit talks, but conceded there had been no breakthrough on keeping open the Irish border.

Britain is due to leave the European Union at the end of March 2019, but Brexit talks must be concluded by this fall to leave national parliaments in the bloc time to ratify any deal.

"We have travelled a large section of the path toward an orderly withdrawal," EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier told reporters in Brussels. He said that negotiators, working day and night recently, had agreed on "a large part of what would constitute" the draft legal treaty governing Britain's departure.