If Brussels is famous for anything, it’s fudge

Jean-claude Juncker declared after the EU backed the Brexit deal that any MP who thought it could be renegotiated would be disappointed in the “first seconds” after Westminster rejected it.

But is the EU-27 really prepared to stick to its guns if it is also faced with a damaging no-deal Brexit? Brussels, after all, is a world capital of political fudge and would surely find a way?

The signs at Sunday’s EU summit were that the president of the European Commission wasn’t alone. One by one, the heads of state, from Angela Merkel to Emmanuel Macron, lined up to say it was this deal or no deal at all.

It was no coincidence the great and good of the EU-27 echoed Theresa May, who has earned grudging respect for her single-minded and resilient pursuit of a deal. Focus in Brussels had switched from extracting British concessions over fishing and Gibraltar, to selling the Brexit agreement to the MPS in the House of Commons.

The Brussels fudge ovens will not be fired up if Westminster votes down the deal on Dec 11. The next day EU leaders meet for their December summit. Rather than the EU running up the white flag, it will signal the skull and crossbones message of “no quarter”.

Brexit Day will still be three months away. The clock will still be ticking and the EU will have huge and growing leverage over Britain.

To add to the tyranny of Michel Barnier’s famous clock, the EU is likely to announce its plans for no deal are in full swing, further concentrating rebel MPS’ minds ahead of an expected second vote.

The EU has been here before. After Greek voters overwhelmingly rejected the deal offered by Brussels, the EU bided its time, until Alexis Tsipras folded under pressure and accepted even harsher bail-out terms. A regulatory and trade behemoth, the EU knows how to win a staring contest.

Renegotiation of the Withdrawal Agreement will be hugely problematic, especially after the EU-27 convinced Spain to drop demands for the mammoth treaty to be reopened.

Instead, Madrid had to be satisfied with an EU-27 statement and letters from the UK and the presidents of the European Council and Commission. Spain will look dimly at Britain, a leaving member state, getting any better treatment.

Reopening negotiations over the political declaration setting the terms of future trade negotiations will also be tough, for similar reasons, though not impossible. But it also runs the risk of hardline states such as France demanding yet more concessions from Britain in return.

The European Commission, which has negotiated both agreements, will want to avoid that or any public fracturing of the bloc’s much vaunted unity in the face of Brexit.

Despite its reputation, the EU can be pragmatic, as it showed in finding a way to soothe fractious Spain with a flurry of what Brussels folk call “paper-ology”.

One senior diplomat predicted that, if necessary, a way would be found to bundle the deal over the line at the crunch moment.

Dalia Grybauskaitė, Lithuania’s president, is much loved by Brussels journalists for her uncharacteristic straight-talking. She was asked how the EU convinced Spain to drop its insistence on renegotiating the Brexit deal. “There are some tricks. I joke, we promise to promise, we deliver sooner or later”, she said.

When it wants to, Brussels can always find a way. But its fudge never leaves everybody satisfied.