this is business live from bbc news with ben thompson and sally bundock. a big day for brexit. eu leaders begin a two—day summit but will the talks end in deadlock again. live from london, that's our top story on thursday 19th october. there are still big questions over the cost of the divorce, who will pay and what trade relationship britain will have with the rest of the eu? we'll assess what's at stake. also in the programme.... checking in on china. growth in the world's second largest economy slows — but what does it mean for the rest of the world? we'll be live in beijing. the markets looking like this on what is decision day for catalonia.

the separatist leader due to announce within an hour on whether he will drop plans for independence. and how to take on the online shopping giants. we'll speak to the company using barcodes to help you find what you want in a nearby shop, and trying to make it easier for small businesseses. and with the british government pushing us to make better choices have you been "nudged" into better behaviour. let us know. just use the hashtag bbcbizlive. hello and welcome to business live. letters not about whether you have been persuaded to do something rather than being told. sally persuades me to cut my coffee consumption every morning. we start in brussels, where eu leaders are

beginning a two—day summit. they're due to decide whether brexit talks with the uk have made enough progress to move on to the next phase. the answer is — almost certainly — no. and it's all about money. in march european commission presidentjean—claude juncker suggested britain will need to pay around $70 billion to settle its commitments before leaving — the so called divorce bill but the uk is reluctant to pay so much. last month, prime minister theresa may effectively agreed to around $23.5 billion by saying the uk would keep paying into the eu budget until 2020. that would partly coincide with a proposed two year transition period. but the eu wants more clarity on the $281 billion of long—term budget commitments — money that hasn't yet been spent. some estimates suggest the uk

would owe over $35 billion. but remember — compared that the $727bn of trade done between the uk and eu last year. that will only start being discussed if enough progress is made on issues including the divorce bill, citizens rights and the irish border. so there's a debate over the short—term cost versus the long—term potential benefit. there are some staggering numbers. pieter cleppe, from the eu policy think tank 0pen europe is in brussels. there is seemingly a lot of obstacles and very little progress. what are your hopes for the next couple of days? it looks like the summit is going to tell theresa may

there is not enough progress made and therefore we cannot start talks about trade. but that is unfortunate because if you look into it, there are three different parts on the divorce. the northern irish question. it is not expected this will be an obstacle. then there is the money. and theresa may has already committed to basically paying into the 2019—20 budgets. and the citizens. 0n the last issue, progress has been made. mainly technical obstacles remain. the eu rightly demands the uk does not make it too hard for eu citizens in britain to obtain settled status, but this is largely procedural, it

is not really about the content. when it comes to negotiators in brussels, michel barnier amber light, the eu brexit negotiator, to what extent is the pressure on them to see more progress more quickly? in the uk there is pressure on the uk government from business leaders. they want the trade talks to start. what about in brussels? michel barnier actually tried to make progress but france and germany have stopped him from doing so. i think it is mainly germany stop —— stopping michel barnier because of procedural reasons they always thought it should be december, and also there is no government coalition yet in germany, so that may have played a role. valuable time is being lost, because we need to have a deal on the divorce

element and on how the transition is going to look imprecisely one year and also we need to have some kind ofan and also we need to have some kind of an idea in the future of the uk and eu relationship and people have to start discussing this, i think. you feel there is enough pressure from all sides for discussions? companies in the uk are in a sense now working on plan b, ie the worst—case scenario, because of the lack of progress. it looks like the same urgency is not yet felt in mainland europe, despite the fact that in mainland europe, if we had a ha rd that in mainland europe, if we had a hard brexit. if there were wto tariffs, 1.2 millionjobs would be lost in mainland europe, half a million in the uk. 0f lost in mainland europe, half a million in the uk. of course proportionally the uk would be hit worse, but this is also a great risk for continental europe and frankly

puzzling that they are so obsessed with discussing about relatively small sums of money for the very problematic eu budget, instead of focusing on the real challenge, which is to prevent trade disruption. thank you very much. from the eu policy think tank based in brussels. you can feel the frustration. we will keep you up—to—date. we touched on the numbers as far as the cost is concerned, but you can find that on the reality check a normal. 0n the reality check. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news... the uk chancellor has asked

financial regulators and the serious fraud office to review whether the banks hsbc and standard chartered are linked to corruption scandal in south africa. neither bankers yet commented. shares in ebay fell sharply after warning that profits this quarter would be lower than wall street expected. the online marketplace is spending heavily to catch up with amazon. ebay said goods sold via its website were worth almost $22 billion. that's up 8% on the same time last year and the fastest growth in three years. you might remember we told you about japan's kobe steel that was at the centre of a scandal over faked test results. well, today, toyota, honda and mazda have come to its defence saying its aluminium components are safe to use. this has eased fears that kobe's scandal could have affected the safety of its products. hundreds of companies around the

world a re hundreds of companies around the world are still checking their products. in asia and growth in the world's second biggest economy has slowed slightly. china's economy grew 6.8% in the three months to september — down from 6.9% in the previous quarter. but if you compare year—on—year, it actually went up. stephen mcdonald is in beijing. nobody is fretting about this number that has just come out? no. while this may be seen as down a bit, it is actually better than expected. gdp growth is about expectations. china's better—than—expected performances on the back of greater factory output and also what people cannot explain

is why domestic consumption is holding up so well. some critics, who are worried about china's economy, would say it is fuelled on the back of debt—laden government expenditure and it has to be reined in. nevertheless china is doing better on the economic front and the governor of the central bank is talking about 7% growth, potentially for the second half of this year. talking about 7% growth, potentially for the second half of this yeahm is one we will watch. a lot of details emerging from china right now, particularly related to the growth figure. the market injapan rising for the 13th straight session today — making it the longest winning streak since 1988. it also hit a fresh 21—year high on the back of rising global stocks and a weaker yen. but do not look at this, it is not right. markets also keeping an eye on the chinese communist party congress — and any talk of the economy after the slowdown

we've just discussed. no mention though of of concerns about soaring corporate debt levels. in europe, it's deadline day for catalonia — if the catalan president doesn't drop the bid for independence, it could force the spanish prime minister to trigger a part of the spanish constitution to seize direct control of the barcelona parliament. that is interesting and matt our nerve investors. and as we've discussed — there's that little matter of brexit talks that resume today in brussels. more on that in a moment, but first samira has the details about what's ahead on wall street today. on thursday, the us president donald trump will meet with the chair of the federal reserve, janet yellen. her term expires in february. mr trump has a pool of five candidates to choose from for the next fed chair, and he may announce his choice

as soon as november, before departing for a trip to asia. in earnings news, verizon communications will be reporting, and its expected to show an increase to revenue for the third quarter. the number one us wireless carrier by subscribers is expected to face questions from investors about the succession planning following the announced departure of its highest—ranking female executive. wall street analysts are expecting that some of the competitive pressures to have eased on verizon and customer switching to be low during the period thanks to a lack of excitement around the iphone 8 launch. that is what is going on in the states. joining us is george godber, fund manager, polar capital. a busy agenda and we have mentioned a few things and we must mention catalonia because in 15 minutes, the

deadline for the president of the region to state whether he did or not declare independence. region to state whether he did or not declare independencem region to state whether he did or not declare independence. it is one of those tail risks. nobody was discussing this two months ago and suddenly it is a real threat. is it a real threat? if they push for full independence, of course it will cause chaos in spain and it will affect spanish growth, which has been a bright spot in europe and a front runner in the european recovery. in addition, you mentioned brexit at the start of the show and the importance of the talks. will spain really be focused on brexit when it has a more important domestic agenda to look at? the clock is ticking. the president of cata la n clock is ticking. the president of catalan has got 15 minutes. we will keep a close eye on events, but let's turn to the us. an interesting time as the chair of the federal reserve meets president

trump. add a question about the future of janet yellen in that role. the interesting thing is what an amazing job she has done of managing expectations in markets. central bankers have two jobs, expectations in markets. central bankers have twojobs, policy expectations in markets. central bankers have two jobs, policy and how they communicate it, which is an art. nobody has ever landed the quantitative easing plane, we have built up 11.5 trillion globally of quantitative easing and the us is the first trying to exit the programme and she has done a brilliantjob of getting the market ready for rate rises which is why mark carney is following her message in the uk. the governor of the bank of england. but does donald trump think that will she get the job a second time? he has been outspoken in terms of his on her. initially, she has done a very good job of managing this programme and the exit and it is a delicate operation,

because the numbers are vast. it does not take much to cause a big wobble that affects real people in a real way. the interest rate that most will focus on, if it suddenly shot up by 1%, it would affect the borrowing rate mortgages and companies through the us economy and globally. thank you. george will return. we are talking nudge theory. and its success. that could be poked theory. we will also talk about how you can baffle the online shopping giants, helping small businesses compete with their bar codes. you're with business live from bbc news. consumer goods giant unilever has just posted its third quarter results. it says sales were up 2.6% in the third quarter, blaming poor weather in europe and natural disasters in the us. it comes on the back of fallout over

the dove soap advert. that's one of the many products in the unilever portfolio. jasper lawler is the head of research at london capital group, shares in unilever down 3% this morning. talk is through the numbers and why the markets are not happy. it's really just a and why the markets are not happy. it's reallyjust a reflection of the fa ct it's reallyjust a reflection of the fact that sales have fallen in this last quarter over the previous first six months. with the backdrop of the fallout of the dove advert, there is a sense here that may be unilever are losing some steam. we have to keepin are losing some steam. we have to keep in mind that shares are near record highs so the temptation to sell is here from investors. as far as dove and the fallout from that, it's a very diverse business with more than 400 grams. although dove

is one of a handful of brands making over1 billion euros annually, so it's significant for them. it's a bit ofan it's significant for them. it's a bit of an egg on face moment, but i'm sure they cant sell more. let's talk about the heinz and kraft deal. it's putting the unilever business... they have to prove themselves now that takeover has not happened. for a large part they are doing that. they mentioned in this report that they are on track for their strategic objectives over the long haul. they are keeping their sales targets on course for this year. as long as they keep along this kind of track then they are still set to move where they need to be. thank you for talking to us. unilever shares down 3%. the business live page will tell you

why those intaserve shares are down. going from one crisis to another, it would seem. lots of detail on that on the website. take a look when you have a moment. you're watching business live. european leaders are expected to confirm today that they are not yet ready to open post brexit trade talks with britain because of the lack of progress over all sorts of issues, but namely the cost of the divorce bill. we will update you as we get news. if you search for something you want online, the chances are you'll get a result from amazon, even if there's a local store 50 feet away that stocks it!

idid i did this yesterday. i wanted to buy light bulbs and it came up on amazon, and i bought them from a shop at the end of my street. but a dublin firm wants to help small retailers compete. pointy was founded by mark cummins and charles bibby, two robotics post—graduates. it's a device that lets shopkeepers put stock online so that they can be discovered via search engines. it's raised money from some impressive investors from paul allen's vulcan capital, matt mullenweg, who founded of wordpress, and google maps co—founder lars rasmussen. pointy has a big presence in the us — it's already in 48 out 50 states. it's not the duo's first start—up, they sold their mobile visual search startup plink to google in 2010. mark cummins is with us. good to have you on the programme. you have brought the pointy device with you. you can explain how it works in a second. you have already created a

company which you sold to google in 2010. he then worked for google yourself and you have now left them to start this company. that's quite a career story. i guess where this came from, when i worked at google i was on the search team and i was struck by the fact you can search billions of pages online in half a second, and if you want to find something in your local store, it hasn't changed in 50 years you have to go and look. this is what the local independent retailer gets with pointy. bake connect that to the bar code scanner in store, and whenever they scan something it goes up online. a typical local store. that costs £299, dollars, a one off fee. they don't have to subscribe. exactly, we try to make it easy. when they have plugged in and scanned it, what does it allow them

to do is? we create a web page with all the products in store, we integrate with a lot of search engines so when somebody types in, where can i find this likeable, we will help them rank in the search engines and bring local consumers into the store who might otherwise have shopped online. how do you know it works? we have seen the web pages come up in search results tens of millions of time and anecdotal feedback from retailers, somebody says they found me on google and they came in so we picked up an extra sale. its present in a lot of states in the us. talk to me about your role around the world. a lot of similarities in markets. you have the technology, so it's about scaling up. local retailers everywhere have similar problems. it's a global problem. across the uk and ireland there is a lot of uptake. 0ne and ireland there is a lot of uptake. one in seven of all stores in the city of dublin now use the city. fairbanks in alaska joined

yesterday, now we have 48 states in the us. as far as cost is concerned, the us. as far as cost is concerned, the joy of buying online is you don't have the overheads. it means the online retailers are able to do it cheaper. but if my local store sells that light bulb at £4, and amazon sells it at £2, we are paying for the convenience. local stores have always competed on convenience. if it's urgent need... 90% of retail still goes through local stores, so they are still a big part of the economy. they are more price competitive than people imagine sometimes. sometimes you find things locally cheaper than amazon. at google you saw what you thought was a crazy idea on a whiteboard. google you saw what you thought was a crazy idea on a whiteboardlj google you saw what you thought was a crazy idea on a whiteboard. i saw google's balloon internet project. i thought it was a joke because they had moon bases and things on a whiteboard, but now it's delivering the internet to puerto rico. it's incredible. thank you for telling us

about pointy. all the best ideas appear on whiteboards. about pointy. all the best ideas appear on whiteboardslj about pointy. all the best ideas appear on whiteboards. i couldn't agree more. here's how to get in touch... stay ahead on the business live page with all the breaking business news. we will have insight and analysis from the bbc‘s team of editors around the world. and we want to hear from you as well. get involved on the web page. we are on twitter and facebook as well. on tv and online, whatever you need to know. we have already stipulated it's an important moment for spain and the spanish economy and the region of catalonia. the latest on that is that the catalan leader puigdemont has not clarified whether he has

made a declaration of independence or not. this is a wire coming from reuters. the catalan leader does not clarify whether he has made a declaration of independence or not. tim wilcox is there and we will speak to him in about five minutes. that deadline is due to expire in about six minutes. we will be live in barcelona for the latest on that. george godber is with us to discuss some of the stories in the papers. we were talking at the start about nudge theory. ifind we were talking at the start about nudge theory. i find this fascinating, it's about government's not telling them to do things, but persuading them not to do it by highlighting the benefits. it seems to be working in the uk. there have been success stories with signs near sugary drinks. some of the basic things, the letter you get when you get a speeding fine, explaining why it might be a 30 mph area, if there isa it might be a 30 mph area, if there is a school nearby, and they say it's had an impact on production rates. if you are cynical you might

say all businesses and governments need to talk to customers in the way customers understand and it might just be the government are learning that. this is the behavioural insights team, it's part of whitehall. a government unit. trevor says, i would rather be told, i hate being hinted at. it's a similar theme, to make it clear. luke says he reacts better when he'sjust theme, to make it clear. luke says he reacts better when he's just told to do something because he said the gets on with it. ian says it's a good construct. when it supplied with integrity it makes a positive different. is it good or not? what do you think i got the small amount over the speed limit, went on the speed awareness course, and i thought it was brilliant. your arm has been twisted? the health stuff is somewhat more difficult because people want clarity. people also wa nt people want clarity. people also want the sugary drinks! see you soon. the weather will remain unsettled

over the next few days. we have a big area of cloud over the atlantic at the moment. this is a troublemaker moving its way in over friday night and into saturday. here and now, lots of cloud, unsettled day with fog patches that will gradually lift and rain spreading north in central and eastern parts of england. a bit of sunshine here and there but as we going to the afternoon, some particularly heavy rain spreading into the south—west. that rain will not last too long, moving through fairly quickly. a narrowband, but when it comes through it will be quite intensive. you can see from the bright colours in the south—west of england at 4pm this afternoon. cloudy in the south—east and up to the midlands. some holes in the cloud. heavy rain moving in from the west into wales. for northern ireland, the rain through the morning and into the afternoon is persistent. it could

lead to problems. and the western isles will see rain moving in. elsewhere across scotland there will be bits of sunshine. the rain also associated with gales around the bristol channel and english channel. those winds eventually abating with lots of cloud still. 0utbreaks those winds eventually abating with lots of cloud still. outbreaks of rainfor many lots of cloud still. outbreaks of rain for many two takers into the early hours of friday morning. friday will be quite unsettled, but the rain starting off in the morning should ease. there will be brighter and sunnier weather developing into the afternoon. the wind is much lighter as well. a quieter sort of day. temperatures of 14 or 15. then further outbreaks of rain spreading into the western areas. that is associated with the big area of cloud, a big area of low pressure that will develop into a deep area of low pressure going into saturday morning. the isobars are pretty close together, meaning we are

looking at severe gales around the coast of wales and southern england. with pretty high tides coastal flooding is a concern across southern areas. showers moving west to east with strong winds for many of us. during sunday, breezy conditions but the wind is not quite as strong. there will be a few showers about but drier and brighter spells compared to saturday. we can all spells compared to saturday. we can a ll start spells compared to saturday. we can all start of quite stormy with gales, not severe, rain at times as well. more details on the website. hello, it's thursday, it's 9 o'clock. i'm victoria derbyshire, welcome to the programme. this morning, with further claims the roll out of universal credit will leave people near destitute, we hear from two parents about their struggles of going on the new benefit. i have gone without food about three days. my five-year-old's last food was school dinners. 0n the saturday we we re was school dinners. 0n the saturday we were walking down the street and

she was searching in bins for food because she was starving. their full stories in around 15 minutes. can these three men keep theirjobs in the fa after new evidence revealed the former england women's head coach mark sampson did racially abuse two players. i had one meeting with martin and he effectively suggested