However, securing the future of local radio has proved to be a much more difficult negotiation.
Van Rompuy told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that, while initial negotiations on the broad outline of a deal could begin as soon as the British government triggered article 50, the more difficult negotiation phase would have to wait until late 2017.
Nonetheless, there has been concerted international pressure on the parties to implement the Hodeida deal, which is widely seen as a crucial first step toward much more difficult negotiations to end the war.
Pursuing a more integrated banking framework could entail even more difficult negotiations than in the case of the banking supervisor because it implies that nations share some liability for failing lenders in other countries and that they give up some sovereign rights over how those decisions would be made.
In early December 2012, however, some Republican leaders reportedly were weighing a "fallback position"—legislation to extend middle-class tax cuts while delaying more difficult negotiations over spending and taxes until late January or February 2013.
He also focuses almost exclusively on buying family-controlled businesses, which, are often more difficult negotiations than with public companies.
It is also being argued that if the UK makes a clear offer to cooperate in these areas, it could oil the wheels in the more difficult negotiations over access to the EU single market.
Historically, many more difficult negotiations - like those between New York City and its unions, or major league baseball and its players, for example - have surely been successful in the past.
Negative views that are needlessly caused usually result in more difficult negotiations, delays and higher implementation costs.
In another sign of a more difficult environment for climate negotiations this year, text establishing a large part of a planned carbon trading system was scuttled after Brazil, one of the world's leading greenhouse gas producers, blocked proposals for counting certain emissions.
