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The latest round of negotiations between the EU and the UK broke up last week, with both sides citing “significant differences” once again. Brussels claimed it was still working “constructively” but suggested that Britain’s top negotiator David Frost had failed to make the necessary concessions. European Commission spokesman Daniel Farrie said: “The EU is acting constructively and in good faith, as Michel Barnier pointed out earlier this week. 

“We are working hard to overcome the significant divergences that remain between us.

“Meetings will continue in Brussels next week and the next round of negotiations will take place in the week of July 20 in London.”

Asked if there were positives from this week’s talks, Mr Farrie added: “My answer will be very, very short there. We are working towards an agreement.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been adamant that he will not allow the discussions to drag on into the autumn, arguing that British businesses and citizens need certainty on the way forward before then.

This means that if the two sides are unable to reach a deal by the end of the current Brexit transition period, Britain will leave the single market and the customs union without any agreement on future access and will trade with the bloc on World Trade Organisation (WTO) terms.

As the clock ticks down, unearthed reports reveal how in 2017, the chief of staff of former EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Selmayr, was determined to “punish” Britain for leaving the bloc in the negotiations.

A throwback report by The Telegraph claimed Mr Selmayr’s fearsome reputation was summed up by many nicknames, including Darth Vadar, Rasputin and The Monster.

Ministers were said to be particularly concerned about his links to the higher echelons of the German government.

He was a member of Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party, and friends with Peter Altmaier, her chief of staff.

Mr Selmayr was not a personal friend of Mrs Merkel but Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader, believed he was trying to manipulate the German Chancellor into taking a tough line on Brexit Britain.

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He said: “They [Mr Selmayr and Mr Juncker] want to box Mrs Merkel into a hard line.

“They don’t care if negotiations succeed, they are obsessed with the idea of the European Union – it’s where their money, jobs and power come from.”

A Whitehall source who had frequent dealings with Mr Selmayr told The Telegraph: “He is incredibly clever, he is unbelievably hard-working, he is a consummate operator.

“He is also a true believer in the European Project and has taken Brexit very personally.

“He has always felt the UK was getting in the way of greater European integration and is clear that if you choose to leave there is a cost to doing so. His mindset is that of a lawyer, whose worldview is about rules and not political judgment.”

British officials believed that Mr Selmayr was determined to poison the negotiations in a bid to “punish” the UK for leaving the European Union.

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While the EU referendum vote threw much of the European Union into despair, Mr Selmayr reportedly declared at the time it was good news – because Eurosceptic Britain would have been cut away – and would have helped “Europe to finally forge a new identity”.

In 2016, he said that his “horror scenario” for the following year would have been Boris Johnson as Prime Minister, Donald Trump as US President and Marine Le Pen in France.

He was subsequently credited with some of the European Union’s most hard-line negotiating positions, including its demand that Britain must pay a £50billion Brexit divorce bill.

In 2014, Mr Selmayr ran Mr Juncker’s campaign for the presidency of the European Commission.

He succeeded in persuading Mrs Merkel to drop her opposition, leaving former Prime Minister David Cameron isolated.

Asked about his “monster” nickname, Mr Selmayr said at the time: “If you look into the history of Rasputin, that can be both flattering and not — Lenin can be flattering or not.

“If it means there is an efficient manager, somebody who is not a wimp, I’m OK with that.

“You can’t run the European Commission like a Montessori school.”

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