German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Brexit talks were moving forward successfully despite Theresa May admitting for the first time that negotiations have hit “difficulty”.
In a distinctly upbeat response to the Prime Minister’s EU summit appeal for help with Brexit, Merkel said talks with Britain were unlikely to break down.
The Chancellor made the comments after May had appealed to her fellow leaders to help her silence critics at home and break a deadlock in the talks.
"In contrast to how it is portrayed in the British press, my impression is that these talks are moving forward step by step," Merkel said.
She dismissed suggestions that talks should be broken off as "absurd" and said: "I have absolutely no doubts that if we are all focused ... that we can get a good result.
“From my side there are no indications at all that we won't succeed.”
Her positivity was reflected by the Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who called May's speech her "best performance yet" and "a warm, candid and sincere appeal".
Ireland's Leo Varadkar also complemented the Prime Minister on a "very strong” address to the Summit.
But others complained they had heard little new of substance and rejected May's repetition of London's view that demands for money from Brussels have "no legal framework".
Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said "rhetorical progress" needed to be followed by "tangible conclusions".
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After May leaves the summit on Friday, the other 27 leaders are expected to rule that there has not been sufficient progress to push the talks forward but will call on their staff to prepare for talks on a transition period that would smooth Britain's exit in 2019.
On Friday morning, May made no comment to reporters as she arrived for a breakfast meeting with summit chair Donald Tusk.
She had admitted the day before that, prior to her key speech in Florence on September 22, she had realised “the difficulty the process was in”.
She was quoted telling a British official that she “listened to what the people in the UK were saying” and worked hard to push forward with talks that had reached stalemate.
So it would have been a welcome relief for the Prime Minister that her comments were received well by EU leaders.
Her precarious position as Conservative leader meant she could have been left all-the-more vulnerable had she not been seen to progress with negotiations.
The Prime Minister was pictured chatting warmly with Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, cementing the image that the deadlock between European powers had eased.
Merkel told reporters the three had been discussing the need to safeguard the Iran nuclear deal after US President Donald Trump's decision last week to "decertify" it.
During her speech, May sought to calm fears Britain would use its departure in March 2019 to undercut the EU economy by lowering standards and appealed to EU leaders to respond in kind to her efforts to break the Brexit stalemate.
The EU is seeking a clearer commitment from Britain that it will settle financial obligations linked to its exit. Leaders will on Friday set a target of December for London to improve its divorce settlement offer.
But they will also make a gesture by launching internal preparations for the next phase of the negotiations.