1/ Member States were updated on the Brexit talks yesterday, and were told that after several weeks of informal phone contacts the next formal round of negotiations will take place the week of the 20th via video link. I know you're all missing Brexit really, so here's the latest.

2/ This will be a proper round like the opening face-to-face talks, with both sides' teams of experts dialling in for different work streams from home while Barnier and Frost oversee things. It'll be the 1st time this has been attempted and the format clearly presents challenges.

3/ The last 3 weeks have been filled with phone calls, often between the sides' technical experts, 'clarifying' points in each other's draft texts. That has been a useful exercise and would've had to happen at this stage anyway, coronavirus or not. But it has now run its course.

4/ Ahead of the next round the UK is expected to table new draft texts on energy, criminal justice cooperation, and (possibly) fisheries. Member States have continued to stress that the UK's insistence the Commission doesn't share the texts with them is harming the negotiations.

5/ Other than that, Brexit is in a 'zombie-like' state at the moment. Political leaders in the UK and EU have all understandably got bigger fish to fry. Frost and Barnier will speak next week to agree a timetable for talks through the Spring, but it's not high priority right now.

6/ Extending the transition isn't yet a live topic in the talks. One Member State asked if it had been discussed and was told it hasn't. But many in the EU now see it as 'inevitable' and say it's up to the UK to have its internal political debate. It's a no-brainer for the EU.

7/ EU sources are keen to stress they're not agitating for this - there's no ploy to delay Brexit. Indeed, they say they had developed their strategy around the PM's insistence the transition would end on December 31 as 'the only certainty we had was the length of negotiations'.

8/ In withdrawal talks the battle was over sequencing. Now it's on the exact opposite - 'parallelism'. The EU wants to ensure equally paced progress across all negotiating strands. The UK wants to press ahead on areas of convergence, which also happen to cover its key interests.

9/ Ultimately plus ca change. The well-worn battlegrounds between the two sides on content, whether it be Level Playing Field or fishing, remain. These are the 'big political questions' that will need answering. But right now the politicians have other things to think about. ENDS