UK to trigger Brexit on March 29; two years of talks ahead

London

PRIME Minister Theresa May will file divorce papers to leave the European Union on March 29, launching two years of complex negotiations that will pit the UK's need for a trade deal against the bloc's view that Britain shouldn't benefit from Brexit.

More than 40 years after the UK joined the EU and nine months since it voted to quit it, Britain's envoy to the bloc, Tim Barrow, informed EU President Donald Tusk on Monday of her plan to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the mechanism for quitting that has never been used.