Brexit deal with UK 'seems not possible': Finnish EU presidency

An agreement with Britain to avoid a no-deal Brexit now appears impossible as the country is in "quite a mess", Finland's prime minister, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said Friday.

"I hope that we can reach a situation where this (Brexit) can be solved so that there is no mess, but it seems not possible now," Antti Rinne told reporters after a meeting with European Parliament president David Sassoli in Helsinki.

"The situation in Britain is quite a mess now. We don't know what's happening there. It seems very obvious that we are not getting Brexit with an agreement".

On Thursday British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would "rather be dead in a ditch" than delay Brexit beyond the current deadline of October 31, despite moves by members of the country's parliament to force a no-deal Brexit off the table.

Johnson has insisted that there has been "substantial progress" in talks with the EU to change the arrangements over the Irish border and thus open the path to reach a new deal on the terms of the UK's exit.

But the prime minister's critics have accused him of running down the clock to a no-deal Brexit.

Other EU member states have said in recent days that they have not yet seen any concrete proposals from London to replace the so-called Irish 'backstop'.

"We know what they don't want but we are still struggling to understand what they do want," France's Europe minister Amelie De Montchalin told French radio on Thursday.