Merkel focuses on the EU’s future at summit as May eyes citizens’ rights
The bloc’s key issues get priority over Brexit talks
BRUSSELS // German chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday insisted that the European Union’s future took priority over Brexit talks as British prime minister Theresa May met European leaders for the first time since her disastrous election gamble.
Under intense pressure on all sides since losing her parliamentary majority, Mrs May said her task at the Brussels summit would be to set out her plans to protect the rights of EU citizens after Brexit.
But Mrs Merkel, Europe’s most powerful leader, made clear that this was not at the top of her agenda as she reaffirmed Berlin’s strong ties with France and its new president, Emmanuel Macron.
“For me the shaping of the future of the 27 is a priority coming before the issue of the negotiations with Britain on the exit,” Mrs Merkel said.
“We want to conduct these negotiations in a good spirit but the clear focus has to be on the future of the 27.” Mr Macron did not mention Brexit directly but said it was time to work “hand in hand with Germany” on putting the EU back on track after years of austerity and crisis.
Britain’s vote to leave the EU exactly a year ago today was the biggest in a series of shocks for the bloc, but it now insists it is turning the corner on anti-EU sentiment. Mrs May was set to brief EU leaders on her Brexit plans over dinner yesterday, before being asked to leave while the remaining 27 countries discuss key issues, including the future location of the EU’s medical and banking agencies, which are currently based in Britain. For her part, Mrs May said she would set out “clearly how the UK proposes to protect the rights of EU citizens in the UK and see the rights of UK citizens living in Europe protected”.
The fate of an estimated 3 million Europeans living in Britain and about 1 million Britons living elsewhere in the EU was thrown into doubt by Britain’s vote to leave the bloc last year.
“That’s been an important issue, we’ve wanted it to be one of the early issues that was considered in the negotiations. That is now the case, that work is starting,” Mrs May said yesterday.
She had previously refused to guarantee the rights of EU citizens in Britain until those of expatriate Britons were secured. A European diplomat said there was “no question of any discussion, let alone any negotiation” with Mrs May at the summit.
The issue of citizens’ rights is one of three priorities in the Brexit talks which began on Monday, along with Britain’s estimated €100 billion (Dh409bn) divorce bill, and the fraught question of Northern Ireland, which will share Britain’s only land border with the EU after Brexit.
Earlier, EU president Donald Tusk said he hoped Brexit could be reversed. “Some of my British friends have asked me whether Brexit could be reversed, and whether I could imagine an outcome where the UK stays part of the European Union,” said the former premier of Poland.
“I told them that in fact the European Union was built on dreams that seemed impossible to achieve, so who knows? You may say I am a dreamer, but I am not the only one,” he said with a broad smile, quoting John Lennon’s iconic song Imagine.
But Belgian prime minister Charles Michel, who has strongly argued for EU unity on Brexit, said Mr Tusk should let it be.