UK tells EU mediators to change Brexit approach
berlin — Britain called on European Union (EU) negotiators on Monday to urgently change their approach to Brexit or face the turmoil of a “no-deal by accident”.
With just over eight months left until Britain is due to leave the EU, there is little clarity about how trade will flow as Prime Minister Theresa May, who is grappling with a rebellion in her party, is still trying to strike a deal with the bloc.
May has stepped up planning for a so called “no-deal” Brexit that would see the world’s fifth largest economy crash out of the EU on March 29, 2019, a step that could spook financial markets and dislocate trade flows across Europe and beyond.
EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said last week that May’s new Brexit proposals contained constructive elements, though he added that many questions remain.
In Berlin on his first overseas trip as British foreign minister since replacing Boris Johnson, who resigned over May’s new proposals, Jeremy Hunt delivered a caution to the most powerful European Union power.
“When it comes to Brexit there is now a very real risk of a Brexit nodeal by accident,” he told a news
I think that many people in the EU are thinking that they just have to wait long enough and Britain will blink. And that’s not going to happen
Jeremy Hunt, British Foreign Secretary
conference alongside his German counterpart Heiko Maas. “I think that many people in the EU are thinking that they just have to wait long enough and Britain will blink. And that’s not going to happen,” Hunt said.Under the current timetable, both London and Brussels hope to get a final Brexit deal in October to give enough time to ratify it by Brexit day next March, though few diplomats expect the deal to be struck until months later.
Speaking in Newcastle, May told factory workers that Britain was making sure it was ready for a nodeal Brexit but that she was working to get an agreement that the British parliament would support.
About 52 per cent of Britain’s total $1.1 trillion trade in goods last year was with the European Union. —