EU leaders brainstorm ways to speed Brexit talks

BRUSSELS — European Union leaders have gathered to weigh progress in Brexit negotiations as they look for new ways to speed up the painfully slow moving process.

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said she told her 27 EU partners that “the clear and urgent imperative must be that the dynamic you create enables us to move forward together.”

Britain is set to leave the EU in 2019, but negotiations must be completed within a year so parliaments can validate it.

Maltese Prime Minster Joseph Muscat praised May’s address to the leaders as her “best performance yet.”

Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite said Friday it appeared to be a rhetorical exercise combining extracts from a previous speech and that it is time to move “from words to real deeds.”