Top negotiators Barnier and Davis have declared the talks have gotten off to a "promising start".
A year after Britons shocked the continent by voting on June 23 to cut loose from their main export market, new debate within Prime Minister Theresa May's Cabinet on precisely what kind of trading relationship to pursue has perplexed European Union leaders, who warn time is tight to agree terms before Britain leaves in 2019.
In their June 2016 referendum, the majority of the British citizens voted in favor of Brexit (51.9% to 48.1%).
Almost a year to the day since Britons shocked themselves and their neighbors by voting on June 23 to cut loose from their main trading partner, and nearly three months since Prime Minister Theresa May locked them into a two-year countdown to Brexit in March 2019, almost nothing about the future is clear.
Soros was also adamant that Prime Minister Theresa May should seek to keep Britain in the EU's single market.
At their first meeting in Brussels on Monday, British and European Union negotiators agreed on a timetable for the Brexit talks.
David Davis said his encounter with the European Union's chief negotiator Michel Barnier was "constructive" - but the Brexit secretary was told the United Kingdom faces "substantial consequences".
With discontent in europhile Scotland and troubled Northern Ireland, which faces a new European Union border across the divided island, Brexit poses new threats to the integrity of the United Kingdom. Come back for continuous updates on Brexit negotiations.
"This first session was useful".
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Hammond may go some way to soften that and could find an unlikely ally in Brexit minister David Davis, whose earlier criticism of businesses for hiring foreigners has also troubled companies.
"The second half of the year now looks far less threatening", said Simon Derrick, chief markets strategist at BNY Mellon.
"In a first step, we will deal with the most pressing issues".
Whatever happens with interest rates and in the Brexit talks, credit ratings agency DBRS says uncertainty "is likely to adversely impact the economy and the fiscal accounts".
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The most senior officials on either side will lead work on efforts to resolve the problem of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, a situation Mr Barnier acknowledged was "politically sensitive" at a time when the Tory government was seeking the support of the Democratic Unionist Party to prop up Mrs May's minority government.
Solving the vexed question of keeping the peace and an open border between the United Kingdom province of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic will also be an urgent priority in the talks, Barnier and Davis agreed. If its assessment is positive, the talks will then move on to "scoping the future relationship on trade and other matters".
EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, who was a senior European Union official involved in the peace process, acknowledged that "this is one of the most sensitive issues before us" and there was an "awful lot of work to do".
And at a final news conference they traded quotes from their respective nations' history: Barnier cited European Union founding father Jean Monnet to say: "I am neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It's not about punishment, it is not about revenge". "That is what I said to David today", he said, adding that there would be "no hostility on my side".
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