EU plans Brexit summit for members in April

BRUSSELS — Once Britain decides to trigger divorce proceedings next week, the 27 other European Union nations will be taking a month to decide on the negotiating framework to achieve the best-possible split-up.

They will hold a special Brexit summit on April 29 to draw up guidelines for the negotiations to follow. EU Council President Donald Tusk said Tuesday that the aim will be to “do everything we can to make the process of divorce the least painful for the EU,” Mr. Tusk said.

Once the summit is over, it might take another few weeks for legal and institutional processes before the negotiations can start in earnest, perhaps in the middle of May. The talks themselves should be over by March 2019.

It promises to be a legal and political battle royal between Britain, the world’s No. 5 economy, and the EU, a vast single market of 500 million people. Mr. Tusk said Tuesday that “Brexit guidelines” will aim to give citizens, companies and all member states “certainty and clarity” on how the talks will go.

Britain — which is excluded from the summit — announced Monday it will formally trigger negotiations to exit the EU on March 29. That is expected to create two years’ uncertainty for all sides because no member state has ever walked away from the bloc.

The EU insists Britain needs to fully disentangle itself from the bloc before negotiating new relations. London hopes the two can go hand in hand to speed up proceedings.

Meanwhile, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on Tuesday asked the devolved parliament to approve her plans to hold a second referendum on Scotland’s independence from Britain. She said she believes a referendum is needed after her efforts to seek a compromise over Britain’s exit from the EU were met with a “hardline response” from Prime Minister Theresa May’s Conservative government. Ms. Sturgeon said she would be open to talks on the timing if the U.K. presented “a clear alternative and the rationale for it.”