European Parliament's top negotiator for Brexit, has demanded that Prime Minister Theresa May provides clarity on the UK's stance toward divorce negotiations, following last week's shock election result.
"Leaving gives us the opportunity to forge a bright new future for the United Kingdom - one where we are free to control our borders, pass our own laws and do what independent sovereign countries do".
Negotiations had been expected to begin next week but May's loss of her parliamentary majority in a general election last week raised doubts about the date.
Davis, a prominent "Leave" campaigner in the referendum, said he was approaching the talks in a "constructive way", knowing they will be "difficult at points".
The first round of formal negotiations on Britain's withdrawal from the European Union will begin on June 19, it has been confirmed.
The unprecedented negotiations come nearly exactly a year after Britons voted last June 23 to leave the EU.
Such is the collapse of May's authority that her entire Brexit strategy is being picked apart in public by her ministers, her lawmakers and her allies on the eve of formal negotiations which begin in Brussels on Monday at 0900 GMT.
Economy Boost, Airport Deal: What Northern Ireland Unionists Get From London
Mrs May's largely unchanged Cabinet earlier discussed plans for the scope of negotiations in a meeting that lasted around 90 minutes.
Significant progress in talks on the budget and citizens' rights issue, as well as on issues around the new EU-UK land border in Ireland, would allow EU leaders to give Barnier a mandate by December to discuss a future, close relationship and, potentially, years of transition after 2019 to smooth its way.
Arriving for a meeting with his counterparts in the 28-country EU, Philip Hammond said his "clear view and I believe the view of the majority of people in Britain is that we should prioritize protecting jobs, protecting economic growth and protecting prosperity as we enter those negotiations and take them forward".
May spent Thursday in talks with each of the five main political parties from Northern Ireland, including the DUP, aimed at getting a power-sharing executive running in the province before a June 29 deadline.
The first round of Brexit talks will begin two days before a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels on 22 and 23 June.
Asked whether she was hopeful that Brexit may not happen, Ms Day said: "You will have to plan for the worst, which is Brexit happening, and that's what is happening".
More pressing is the issues of providing effective guarantees to some 5 million people around 3 million European Union citizens living in Britain plus nearly 2 million Britons in Europe who want to know what the future holds after Brexit.
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