EU's Juncker to speak to Johnson on Brexit offer

• European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will hold a call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday.
• Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Juncker and Johnson would speak after the speech at 5:15 pm.

BRUSSELS: European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker will hold a call with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday to discuss his new proposal for a Brexit withdrawal deal.

But Juncker's spokeswoman said Brussels has yet to see the legal text of the plan and warned that any deal must meet "all the objectives of the backstop", referring to the mechanism designed to avoid a hard border between Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland.

The British government's Brexit negotiator, David Frost, is in Brussels and will hold "technical talks" with his EU counterparts later in the day, as Johnson addresses his Conservative Party conference in England and unveils more details of his plan.

Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said Juncker and Johnson would speak after the speech at 5:15 pm (1515 GMT). Officials said they were expecting a copy of the proposal but would give no official reaction before the call.

"We will listen to the UK and we will probably have many questions on the text," an EU official said.

"We will then brief member states and the European Parliament and based on that we will decide if we go into a tunnel or not," he added, referring to the so-called "diplomatic tunnel" of intense final-stage negotiations.