It is 'legally impossible' to enforce demands for Britain to pay a massive £92billion (€100billion) divorce bill, lawyers in Brussels have reportedly privately admitted.
The shock revelation is contained in minutes of a meeting and given to the Brexit negotiation team in Brussels.
But the European Commission has ignored the advice of its own lawyers and pushed ahead with demanding the hefty bill regardless.
The staggering bill has contributed to the poisoning of relations between Britain and the EU.
Aides to European Commission president Jean Claude Juncker, pictured in Florence on Friday, have briefed against Theresa may contributing to a downturn in relations between Britain and the bloc
EU negotiators have doubled the charge the UK was thought to be facing in order to cover farm subsidies and plug the giant hole in its budget up until 2020.
The numbers have shot up because they are trying to deny the UK a share of billions of pounds of assets across the continent - such as buildings.
But it has now emerged that serious questions have been raised over the legality of this position, according to a report in the Sunday Telegraph.
Demands that the UK's share of assets should not be included in calculations of the Brexit settlement were reportedly made at a seminar in February held by Brexit chief negotiator Michel Barnier.
According to minutes of the meeting seen by the newspaper, Nadia Calvino, the director-general in charge of the budget, argued against the idea.
She warned that Europe could not start 'cherry-picking' which parts of the annual accounts it wanted to base its calculations on.
In a separate legal memo seen by the newspaper, Mr Barnier's team warned it would be 'legally impossible' to insist Britain keeps paying for farm subsidies after it leaves the EU in March 2019.
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4481498/EU-lawyers-say-92billion-Brexit-Bill-t-enforced.htmlMay has already told them to go piss up a rope, now their own lawyers are doing the same. I'm enjoying this.
