EU Brexit chief tells Britain there is no time to waste

Timetable thrown into doubt by May’s election setback

BRUSSELS // The European Union’s Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned London not to waste time, as Brussels waits for embattled British prime minister Theresa May to name a date for talks.

Mr Barnier lamented that it was already three months since Mrs May had formally triggered the two-year process for Britain to leave the European Union.

“My preoccupation is that time is passing, it is passing quicker than anyone believes because the subjects we have to deal with are extraordinarily complex ... I can’t negotiate with myself,” Mr Barnier said.

“It will take us several months to draw out the conditions of an orderly withdrawal ... so let’s not waste time,” he said.

Formal negotiations between Mr Barnier and British Brexit minister David Davis had been due to start next week but that timetable has been thrown into doubt by Mrs May’s catastrophic loss of a parliamentary majority in last Thursday’s election.

She is now seeking to cling to power by forging an alliance with the Democratic Unionst party of Northern Ireland.

Mr Barnier held “talks about talks” in Brussels with Mrs May’s Brexit adviser Olly Robbins and Britain’s ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, on Monday but failed to agree on a date for negotiations to begin.

Mr Barnier told the French daily Le Monde: “I need a British delegation and a head of delegation who are stable, responsible and have a mandate.”

Mr Barnier has said he wants to wrap up a Brexit deal by October next year so there is time to get it through national parliaments and the European parliament in time for Britain’s departure from the bloc at the end of March 2019.

The EU president Donald Tusk also said there was “no time to lose” if Britain was to avoid crashing out without a deal on future relations. But the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said it was not too late for the UK to change its mind.

“The British government has said we will stay with the Brexit,” Mr Schaeuble said. “We take the decision as a matter of respect. But if they wanted to change their decision, of course they would find open doors.” Meanwhile in London, the former prime minister Sir John Major joined a growing chorus of voices telling Mrs May she does not have a mandate to pursue the hard Brexit she was planning.

“The views of those who wish to stay in are going to have to be borne in mind to a much greater extent after this election: a hard Brexit was not endorsed by the electorate,” Mr Major said yesterday. “We have to recognise that the election changed if not everything, then a very great deal, and the government are going to have to respond to that.” Mr Major was prime minister in the 1990s when of European integration also threatened to tear apart the Conservative party. He put his leadership on the line to get the Maastricht Treaty – the blueprint for the European Union – through the House of Commons, with the support of the Ulster Unionist Party.

Two decades later Mrs May’s grip on power is tenuous. Her weakened premiership has revived a battle between Conservative hardliners who want a clean break from the EU and the emboldened pro-EU MPs who see a chance to soften the landing.