Johnson and von der Leyen to meet on Wednesday (UPDATE)

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Talk of a chaotic British split from the European Union grew on Tuesday with just three weeks left to break a deadlock in trade deal negotiations, with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson warning that the two sides may have to accept “no deal”.

The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, told a meeting of the bloc’s ministers that he believed a no-deal scenario at the end of the year was now more likely than an agreement on trade ties, an EU official and two diplomats told Reuters.

Deepening the gloom, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said that unless there was a breakthrough “in the next day or two”, EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday and Friday would have to discuss contingency plans for the economic disruption a rupture with no trade accord would bring.

“Unfortunately we are facing the prospect of a no-deal Brexit if something doesn’t break that in the next day or two,” Martin told parliament in Dublin

Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the European Union’s Ursula von der Leyen will meet on Wednesday in Brussels to try to unlock Brexit trade deal talks over dinner, the British government said on Tuesday.

“The PM will travel to Brussels tomorrow for dinner with VDL to continue discussions on the future relationship between the UK and the EU,” a spokesman from Johnson’s Downing Street office said.

(Reporting by William James; writing by Costas Pitas)