EU Leaders React Coolly to May's Brexit Entreaties
EU Leaders React Coolly to May's Brexit Entreaties
BRUSSELS—British Prime Minister Theresa May, having overcome a bruising leadership challenge from her own party, ran into fresh trouble in Brussels on Thursday, with her efforts to persuade her European Union counterparts to sweeten the Brexit deal effectively running aground.
Some EU leaders said Mrs. May had failed to set out clearly what assurances she wanted. Others said she was effectively asking for them to re-open the Brexit agreement, something they have repeatedly ruled out doing.
In the end, the other leaders offered some encouraging words but appeared on Thursday night to rule out offering any kind of legal assurances to the U.K. to mitigate the parts of the deal most unpopular with British lawmakers.
Thursday’s setback adds to Mrs. May’s woes and could make her political reprieve at home on Wednesday short-lived. To drive the Brexit deal through the U.K. Parliament, she had promised to secure political and legal assurances from EU leaders to soften the concessions Britain made in the Brexit deal. Failure to do so will likely reinforce fears that the negotiations are heading toward a chaotic no-deal outcome, damaging the European and British economies.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May survived a no-confidence vote triggered by lawmakers of her own party over her handling of Brexit. WSJ Brexit Editor Stephen Fidler explains why securing a deal has been so chaotic.
EU officials expressed open frustration with Mrs. May’s position, saying the U.K. still wasn’t being clear either about what it wanted from the bloc’s leaders or how she planned to get its own lawmakers’ backing for the agreement.
“Our U.K. friends need to say what they want, instead of asking us to say what we want,” said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. “Because this debate is sometimes nebulous and imprecise. And I would like clarifications.”
German Chancellor Angela Merkel interrupted Mrs. May during her presentation to try to clarify what the British leader wanted, officials briefed on the discussions said. Other leaders questioned how and when she would win backing for the deal.
Her lack of convincing answers and her perilous political position persuaded leaders, several senior diplomats said, when they met later without Mrs. May, to reject the option of offering some kind of legal assurances in the coming weeks.
That outcome, coming after Mrs. May’s narrow victory in Wednesday’s no-confidence vote triggered by rebel lawmakers from her own party, underlined the enormous challenge she now faces to win lawmakers’ backing for the accord. They must vote by Jan. 21, and the U.K. is due to leave the bloc on March 29.
At the heart of British lawmakers’ concerns is the so-called Irish backstop, intended to ensure there is no re-emergence of a physical border between the Republic of Ireland, which will remain an EU member, and Northern Ireland, which is a part of the U.K.
Critics say its provisions, which would come into effect if the long-term U.K.-EU trade agreement were otherwise to require border checks on intra-Ireland trade, would lock the U.K. indefinitely into the EU’s customs area. That would keep Britain tethered to some EU rules and prevent it from striking free-trade deals.
Irish officials have warned there can be no move to weaken or complicate the possible future enforcement of the guarantees.
Mrs. May held a question-and-answer session Thursday evening with European leaders, in an effort to build political momentum to renegotiate a deal. She assured leaders that if the EU could offer assurances that the Irish backstop was temporary, then she could get the deal through Parliament.
“We must get this right, let’s leave nothing in reserve,” Mrs. May said to EU leaders.
Officials said one idea Mrs. May put on the table was a target date for 2021 for the backstop to end. That would leave Britain under the backstop’s provisions for a year after the end of its 21-month transition period. When questioned how this arrangement could be made legally binding without undermining the point of the backstop, Mrs. May provided no clear answers, two officials said.
In a statement, the EU leaders said the backstop was only an insurance policy and that to avoid its use, the bloc would work to secure a trade deal as soon as possible after the U.K.’s transition period.
They also said that “if the backstop were nevertheless to be triggered, it would apply temporarily, unless and until it is suspended by a subsequent agreement that ensures that a hard border is avoided.”
They offered no pledge, however, to look at further measures to legally secure these assurances. Nor was there any mention of setting a target date for completing a trade agreement, an idea that British and some European officials had floated.
Ms. Merkel told reporters after Thursday’s meetings that no deadline for ending the backstop could be set, stressing that avoiding it ever entering into force depended on the U.K. coming up with “good proposals” on the future relationship.
“We have a transition period, the goal is to [negotiate the future relationship] within that period, but it depends on both sides making efforts,” she said. “The backstop is the reinsurance in case it doesn’t work out in that period. That’s why we can’t set another deadline.”
Meanwhile, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen slammed British leaders for failing to build a cross-party position on Brexit before negotiating with the bloc, as his country did after it rejected a new EU treaty in 1992.
—Max Colchester and Emre Peker contributed to this article.
Write to Laurence Norman at laurence.norman@wsj.com and Valentina Pop at valentina.pop@wsj.com
SOURCE LINK BEST ONLINE NEWS WEBSITE https://www.beviral.online
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario