we have involved through a special structure, which is called brexit steering group, we have involvedmajor political groups in the european parliament of being part of brexit negotiations with a view to build a constructive body, a constructive majority for the future vote on the deal once it's finalised, which is actually the situation today. just a few days ago, theresa may and the eu 27 leaders agreed on the withdrawal agreement treaty. they also agreed on a framework for the future relationship between the eu 27 and britain. after that deal was done, jean—claude juncker, the president of the commission, said this is the best deal possible, in fact, this is the only deal possible. we're not to take him entirely seriously, are we? well, i think one should take it seriously because after all the negotiations, actually, we have reached an agreement. if you look at our watches, if you look at them, you can see the time is really disappearing very quickly actually, and we have very limited time now to finalise the whole process and you can see on the basis of what is going on now in the

my guess is danuta hubner, an influential mep who sits on the brexit steering group in parliament. ready to deal with potential brexit chaos? danuta hubner in brussels, welcome to hardtalk. welcome to you as well. i talked about the fateful decision facing british parliament, how closely are you and others at the heart of power in brussels, watching the events unfold in the uk right now? well, we have him, i think, watching safely what is going on in the uk from the very beginning from this announcement made years ago for the future referendum, then dealing with mr cameron in february 2016 and then of course, the referendum which was a big, bad surprise to me personally. then the notification and we organise ourselves in the parliament in such a way that it could not only follow, but also contribute to the negotiations. we have been also briefed basically weekly by michel barnier, chief eu negotiator on progress on the negotiations, the challenges on the negotiations. we have evolved through a special structure called brexit steering group, involving five major political group in eu

the european parliament's brexit steering group says not a rumor, says welcome progress on brexit deal. then there's this. eu, brexit deal brings legal certainty on consequences of the uk breaking away from the european union. mark, let's bring it back to the united states. if all of this good news starts to really kind of take hold here, you begin to see the fed emboldened. i know you already talked about the fed, but we just saw 30-year mortgages for fixed rates, the average of it, move oh, so close to 5%. we can put it up on the screen so everybody can see the number. how do you see this playing out if we start to see at 4.94% now for the 30-year fixed, what happens to the housing market and does that ding the rest of the u.s. economy? >> well, absolutely. we are seeing that right now, right? we are seeing the housing market slow. it's a function of worsening affordability between what admittedly is a slowing home price appreciation and some of those formerly red-hot markets now cooling off. but no, the housing market is seeing slower growth and that dings the u.s. economy as a whol

she sits on the brexit steering group. brexit, theresa may is in brussels today.oday we will have a meeting between theresa may and jean-claude juncker. this will be the last step sunday when the member states will meet and decide about the common agreement. that is why it will the an important step. i think theresa may is some wording get saying more about the future relations. getill be keen that we will , that we will remain in the framework of the withdrawal agreement at the moment. francine: will theresa may be able to get a better deal from the eu so she can pass it through u.k. parliament? to passi think she has it on to the british government. we will get it in the european parliament and the beginning of december. , then alle preparations can be done to prepare the brexit at the end of march next year. tom: thank you so much. francine, what is the next step in italy? do not understand what the ramifications are or the consequences are for italy. francine: i think they are huge and varied. we will see if the eu threatens italy with sanctions, if italy says

reading a statement here from guy verhofstadt, the european parliament brexit coordinator, he is on the steering groupat it is encouraging to see that we are moving towards a fair deal, in his view, interesting, and it is up to elected parliamentarians on both sides of the channel to do their work and scrutinise the deal. i would like you to look into your crystal ball, and i know you have not read the text either, i bet you are itching to get your hands on it. what has theresa may won, first of all. what is a win for her? what she has managed to do, it seems like, is the win is in her cabinet at the moment, we don't know about parliament. she has managed to square parliament. she has managed to square a parliament. she has managed to square a cabinet that it seemed couldn't be squared around the irish backstop on the customs arrangements. that by itself is no mean achievement. i should say that we can't be certain about the cabinet, because if you think back to chequers, the last ever that excited about brexit, it took the foreign secretary 48 hours to realise what he had signed up to and resign over