UK compromises on Brexit date as EU sets out transition time frame
LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May gave her backing to a legislative compromise allowing Brexit to be delayed, avoiding another parliamentary defeat while promising that pushing back the departure date would only happen in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
The comments came as the European Commission said that it wants a post-Brexit transition period, during which Britain must continue to obey EU rules, to finish at the end of 2020.
Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said that “all EU policies will still apply” during the transition to a new relationship between London and Brussels following Britain’s exit from the union.
“From our point of view, the logical end should be Dec 31, 2020,” Barnier said at a press conference in Brussels as he presented the new Brexit negotiating guidelines produced by the commission, the EU’s executive arm.
This would coincide with the end of the EU’s seven-year budget for 2014 to 2020, he said.
Later Wednesday, during a grilling from the British parliament’s powerful liaison committee, May defended the idea – and proposed length – of a transition phase.
“I haven’t begged the European Union for two more years,” she said, arguing it was to allow businesses and governments time to make necessary changes.
The specific date of Britain’s departure from the bloc has become a flashpoint in draft Brexit legislation, which moved closer to becoming law Wednesday as parliament concluded its eighth and final day of scrutiny.
May, who suffered a humiliating defeat by pro-EU members of her own Conservative Party last week when MPs voted to ensure lawmakers have the final say on any divorce deal with Brussels, this time managed to avoid another rebellion.
The government had planned to enshrine the exact date and time of Brexit – March 29, 2019 – in law, but bowed to pressure and agreed to compromise by allowing ministers to move the date if necessary.
May told the House of Commons that the amendment allowing flexibility on the departure date “would only be in extremely exceptional circumstances and it would only be for the shortest possible time”.
Speaking during weekly questions ahead of the lawmakers’ debate, she added she remained clear that “we’re leaving the European Union on the 29th March 2019”.
The key amendment was subsequently approved in the House of Commons unopposed, allowing the EU withdrawal law to pass the so-called committee stage.
The bill has two days of further debate by MPs in January, when the amendment could be reviewed, before it goes to the unelected upper House of Lords for debate.
Britain’s EU withdrawal law would formally end its membership of the bloc and transfer EU rules into its statute books. — AFP