The much-awaited negotiations that will pave the way for the UK to quit the EU have finally got underway.
In the otherwise nondescript setting of a seventh floor office in the European Commission's Berlaymont headquarters, the two men tasked with thrashing out an agreement came face to face for the first time.
Amid much media hype, Michel Barnier, the former French government minister heading the EU side, and political veteran David Davis, his counterpart for the UK government, exchanged pleasantries - and gifts - when they met in Brussels on 19 June. With Brexit talks now up and running, the clock is rapidly ticking on the two-year timetable for Britain to bid its farewell to the EU.
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The first hurdle Theresa May's government faced was concluding a deal with the 10 MPs from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), an alliance which was designed to shore up the Conservatives after the recent inconclusive UK general election.
If comments from DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds are anything to go by (and at the time of going to press the Tories were still due to finalise a confidence and supply deal with the DUP), Britain will be heading for a so-called 'hard Brexit' by the time the talks are due to end in March 2019.
After last week's Queen Speech, which set out the UK government's new legislative programme, Dodds said, "Let me make it very clear - I believe when people voted in the referendum to leave the EU that they voted to leave the single market and customs union. And I believe that Northern Ireland must, along with the rest of the UK, do likewise."
Team Barnier and Team Davis are due to convene for one week each month and the EU side won an early concession when it was agreed that three issues - citizens' rights, the UK's divorce bill for quitting the EU, and the Northern Irish border issue - must be resolved before discussions move on to other matters, notably trade and the future EU/UK relationship.
The start of negotiations also signalled the launch of a round of meetings and hearings last week in the European Parliament on a number of Brexit-related affairs, ranging from fisheries to education and culture.
A meeting of the fisheries committee, for example, heard that the UK must reach a new agreement with the EU to replace the common fisheries policy (CFP), one which has to safeguard the free movement rights of fishery workers. Post-Brexit access to fisheries resources in
British or EU waters will have to be dealt with, probably through an ad hoc fisheries agreement between the two sides, it was said.
The petitions committee, meanwhile, heard evidence from two petitioners, both British, who made impassioned appeals to MEPs to help protect the rights of citizens on both sides of the English Channel when the UK withdraws from the EU.
One petitioner was Dr Kristina Howells, an English teacher and opera singer originally from Bedfordshire who now lives in Calais, France, a country which has become home to 500,000 expat Brits. She said "acute uncertainty" had resulted from the EU referendum and the response from the UK side had been "totally unpredictable. Now, while things are so fluid, is the key moment for the rights of expats both living in the UK and in the EU27 to be brought into the open, debated and settled."
Ashley Fox, leader of Conservative MEPs in Parliament, welcomed the start of Brexit negotiations, insisting that May "has a clear plan to secure a comprehensive new relationship."
But Labour's leader in Parliament, Glenis Willmott, said, "David Davis has begun some of Britain's most important negotiations for a generation, yet the British people still have no information about what he intends to negotiate."
So what happens now? Well, each of the EU's three main institutions - Commission, Council and Parliament - will feed into the EU's negotiating stance. Parliament can try to shape negotiations by passing its own resolutions and must sign off any deal. Guy Verhofstadt has the role of leading on Brexit for Parliament, though he will not be at the negotiating table himself.
UK MPs and peers are expected to vote on the Brexit deal by late 2018. If they say no, Britain still leaves the EU but with no deal on special trading terms.
There is a more complicated process in mainland Europe, however. A Brexit deal needs to be approved by member states by qualified majority. That means 20 of the 27 EU countries' national parliaments must say yes, plus they must make up at least 65 per cent of the EU's population.
If and when issues like citizens' rights are resolved, agreeing a new free trade deal will be even harder. All EU members' parliaments - including regional parliaments - are expected to have to say yes.
Professor Sionaidh Douglas-Scott, a UK constitutional expert, has voiced fears that the unprecedented size of the task facing the EU and UK may prove insurmountable.
But, despite what she calls the "huge challenge and complexities" of unravelling a relationship that has lasted for more than four decades, Pieter Cleppe, of the think tank Open Europe, believes that "Brexit is likely to end well," given that "all elements are there to negotiate a stable, long-term bilateral arrangement, which would lead to Britain turning from a disgruntled tenant into a good neighbour."
Some, including European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly, believe that, having caught a glimpse of the alternative, Brexit (and other recent seismic events such as the election of President Trump) has actually brought Europeans together rather than leading to its expected rupture.
If that is the case, Giles Merritt, of Friends of Europe, says governments should capitalise on any newfound "euphoria" while it lasts. "This is good news may be dangerous as it raises unrealisable expectations but it is also a not to be missed opportunity," he cautions.