Theresa May meets European Union President Donald Tusk on Friday in the first of a series of key meetings that both sides hope will crack open the Brexit deadlock in time for Christmas. May and Tusk will talk in Brussels on the sidelines of a gathering of European leaders. She wants to know that an improved offer on the divorce bill will win her a pledge soon after to move talks on to trade. If it goes well, the meeting could prepare the ground for a new round of discussions between the chief negotiators to be held next week. The EU is set to decide on its position ahead of a crunch summit on Dec. 14. Suspicions remain in London that the EU will simply bank any new promise from May and then demand more money to cover the cost of the split without agreeing that trade talks can begin, Bloomberg’s Tim Ross reports. British officials believe that would be fatal to the negotiation process. They want concrete assurances from the EU that a fresh offer will be reciprocated, according to a person familiar with the matter. They have been disappointed before: The British argue that May made a major offer on paying into the EU budget, and honoring other long-term financial obligations, at a speech in Florence in September – as the EU had asked for in advance – only for the bloc to say it wasn’t enough. May put 20 billion euros ($23.7 billion) on the table then, and is now preparing a better offer to get closer to the EU’s demand for about 60 billion euros for budget payments promised while the U.K. was a member and other liabilities, such as pensions. The other key divorce issue, which needs to be sorted out before EU leaders will allow trade negotiations to begin, remains the Irish border. The EU has adopted the Irish position wholesale in recent weeks, arguing that there must be no policed border between the EU member Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K. If there’s not one on the island there would have to be one between Northern Ireland and mainland Britain, something that’s unacceptable to London and to the Northern Irish lawmakers who prop up May’s government. The rhetoric on both sides has grown more robust in recent weeks. Ireland essentially has a veto at this stage as it can block the start of trade negotiations until it’s satisfied with the solution put forward on the border. Instead, U.K. officials have proposed that Ireland could hold fire and block a final accord if it wished, Bloomberg’s Dara Doyle and Robert Hutton report. The U.K. has raised the possibility of a so-called “process veto” for Ireland, a stipulation that when it comes to a withdrawal agreement, nothing will be agreed until everything is agreed, according to European officials, who declined to be named because negotiations are ongoing. Adding to the complexity, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar could face an election after a domestic controversy that risks bringing down his government. That could make him less willing to compromise in Brussels. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform think tank, predicted this week that if there’s no breakthrough in December, it will be Ireland, not the financial settlement, that scuppers it. Read More: These are the crucial dates in the countdown to December. Brexit Latest Gloomy Consumers | U.K. consumer confidence tumbled in November, reaching the lowest level since the aftermath of the referendum. YouGov and the Centre for Economics and Business Research said optimism suffered its biggest monthly decline since the month after the vote; all eight measures in the index fell. Living Standards Slump | Britons are facing the longest fall in living standards since records began 60 years ago, according to the Resolution Foundation. In an analysis of the government’s latest budget and accompanying report by the Office for Budget Responsibility, the institute said the economy is set to be 42 billion pounds smaller in 2022 than predicted in March. Wages won’t return to their pre-financial crisis levels of 2007 until at least 2025 once inflation is taken into account. Household disposable incomes will fall for an unprecedented 19 straight quarters between 2015 and 2020, according to Resolution. Debt Burden | Britain’s national debt may not fall to pre-crisis levels until “well past the 2060s,” the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned Thursday. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond’s goal of balancing the books by the middle of the next decade looks “remote” after the government’s fiscal watchdog downgraded its outlook for the economy, the IFS said. Preparations, Please | Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau called for better preparations ahead of Brexit, saying “all actors should as of now undertake all the necessary preparations to avoid any potential ‘cliff-edge’ risk.” While no one wants to “punish” the U.K., it can’t expect to keep banks’ access to the single market if it doesn’t accept the single market’s rules, such as freedom of movement, he said. And Finally…British bids for European Capital of Culture crown have been canceled after the European Commission ruled that the U.K. will no longer be eligible after Brexit, the BBC reports. Five places had already bid for the title in 2023: Dundee, Nottingham, Leeds, Milton Keynes and Belfast/Derry. Non-EU cities have won before, including Istanbul. But the EU says if a country isn’t already a member it has to be candidate to join the bloc or already in the European Free Trade Association or European Economic Area, according to the BBC. Cities have already invested in their bids, with Leeds spending 1 million pounds, the BBC said. For more on Brexit follow Bloomberg on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram Before it’s here, the Brexit Bulletin is on the Bloomberg Terminal. To contact the author of this story: Emma Ross-Thomas in London at [email protected]. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anne Swardson at [email protected], Adam Blenford ©2017 Bloomberg L.P.