EU internal discussions are now focusing on a possible "holding pattern statement" at this week's EU leaders summit, along the lines of "we've made great progress in negotiations but still need more time".
"We felt last week that things would now move very quickly," one northern European diplomat told Katya Adler, the BBC Europe editor, adding, "Now we realise we're still pretty far apart."
The United Kingdom is scheduled to leave the European Union at the end of this month, however the deadline has been postponed before as Britain was initially supposed to divorce the bloc in March but failed due to hurdles to the Brexit deal in the UK Parliament.
While PM Boris Johnson has vowed Britain will leave the EU on 31 October with or without a deal, UK lawmakers adopted legislation forcing him to request a delay to the Article 50 deadline until January 2020 if an agreement has not been struck before the aforementioned date.
