For his first official appearance before the press, on Tuesday 6 December, Michel Barnier, the Commission's negotiator on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, delivered a very tight negotiation calendar, stating that the divorce agreement between London and the EU would have to be ready by no later than October 2018 in order to allow it to be ratified by the European Parliament and the British Parliament before the European elections of 2019. This is the date that has been set...