Brexit supporters wave Union flags as the time reaches 11 O'Clock, in Parliament Square, venue for the Leave Means Leave Brexit Celebration in central London on Jan 31, 2020, the day that the UK formally leaves the European Union. (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS / AFP)

LONDON - The first official Brexit talks in almost a month are scheduled to take place on Wednesday, with the two chief negotiators from London and Brussels making their first contact since mid-March.

PM Boris Johnson, currently recovering after becoming infected with COVID-19, has written the Dec 31 end date for the transition period into British law

With Britain still insisting there will be no extension to the Dec 31 deadline to complete the "divorce" from the European Union (EU), the talks held Wednesday will aim to find a way of salvaging Brexit negotiations in the face of disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic, British newspaper the Financial Times (FT) reported.

It will be Britain's chief negotiator David Frost and the European Union Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier's first official contact since March 19, after Barnier tested positive for COVID-19.

ALSO READ: UK urged to extend Brexit transition time

The FT reported that by now, three full negotiating rounds should have been completed, but with lockdowns across Europe, contact between the two sides has been limited to seeking clarifications about each other's proposals.

The FT said Wednesday's phone call will not address the question of the possibility of extending Britain's post-Brexit transition period beyond the end of this year.

"Despite growing pressure on the UK government to request an extension, ministers insist Britain will not countenance a further delay to the Brexit process," the FT commented.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, currently recovering after becoming infected with COVID-19, has written the Dec 31 end date for the transition period into British law.

Johnson's strategy, reported the FT, was based on the EU and Britain holding intensive negotiations to hammer out a new trade agreement that would cushion the blow of leaving the EU's orbit. Those talks have been fundamentally disrupted by the pandemic.

Currently, any plans to keep Britain tied to Brussels beyond 2020 would have to be approved by the end of June.

The British government will have to decide if the logic of its current policy holds up, given the heavy damage the lockdown has inflicted on the private sector, said the FT.

READ MORE: EU pushes Britain to extend Brexit talks over virus outbreak

Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London and deputy director of the UK in a Changing Europe initiative, said in a commentary in the FT that a common argument against extending transition is that there is still plenty of time to conduct negotiations with the EU.

"While face-to-face meetings are clearly impossible during the coronavirus pandemic, talks can, they claim, be conducted just as well by videoconferencing -- especially since the civil servants participating in them, are not, they say, also involved in the battle against coronavirus," Bale wrote.