Nobody was expecting this week's council to decide that the Article 50 talks had made "sufficient progress" to move on to phase 2 (these terms are discussed below) but people have started talking about December (the next EU Council is on 14-15 December). Merkel was reported to have seen enough progress to hope it would be possible to "take the work forward and then reach the start of the second phase in December", and the Finnish prime minister was similarly hopeful: "I hope we can decide the next phase in December’s meeting, but today we are not in that position".
On the British side of the Channel media and political voices immediately translated these tentative hopes into definite promises and started speaking of "trade talks in the new year". The problem is that the next stage referred to is not a trade negotiation. Phase 2 of the Article 50 talks, as defined in the European Council (Art. 50) guidelines for Brexit negotiations which define what Michel Barnier is mandated to talk about, is expected to identify an "overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship", and nothing more.
I've tried to construct a representation of this Brexit thing, and Article 50 is only a small but vital part of it. Nothing in the pink section on the right can be achieved until "exit day" (agreements might be signed later the same day or ten years later, but not before). I'll be amending this as I learn more and have errors pointed out, but here's the current attempt (draft 2).
The problem identified above is that British politics and media seem to think there's an arrow from the end of Article 50 phase 2 to UK-EU trade talks which is not the way the EU27 are working at all. Once the framework for a future relationship is agreed, trade talks might start in parallel, but they are not part of the Article 50 process.
