EU wants to agree formula for Britain's exit bill - Reuters

EU officials were on the wires, via Reuters, as the European Union wants to agree with Britain on a formula for calculating how much it will owe the bloc after it leaves, rather than defining a concrete sum in advance.

Key Highlights:

•"A possible approach ... was that we negotiate a methodology, we take a snapshot of EU accounts at the moment of Britain's exit, we do a quick audit and we agree on how to calculate the British share of the accounts,"

•EU officials said the possible bill of 55 to 60 billion euros that has been mentioned in Brussels since last year was only a very rough estimate. The key variable would be Britain's share of all EU assets and liabilities at the moment of leaving.

•The starting point for calculating Britain's share of EU assets and liabilities is its annual contribution to the EU budget. In 2014, Britain paid 11.34 billion euros and, in 2015, 18.21 billion. This was after a rebate, originally secured by prime minister Margaret Thatcher, that has fluctuated between 6.25 billion euros and 3.56 billion over the past decade.