Delays ahead as talks stall
Neither side willing to yield over thorny Irish border issue at latest Brexit summit
European Union leaders gave themselves several more weeks — perhaps until the end of the year — to clinch a friendly divorce with Britain before their separation, after a Brexit summit yesterday avoided any friction but also produced no tangible results.
British Prime Minister Theresa May provided none of the substantial new proposals that EU Council chief Donald Tusk had urged her to bring to the table, giving the 27 other leaders little more than a plea for goodwill.
“The last stage will need courage, trust and leadership on both sides,” May told her EU counterparts.
Officials said there were hints that Britain might consider extending a post-Brexit transition period beyond the proposed 21 months to make talks on a future trade relationship easier.
But the meeting that had been painted as a make-or-break moment for a Brexit deal ended with a whimper.
“Nothing new tonight,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said after an evening when not exacerbating divisions with Britain was seen as a victory in itself.
Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier said that “we need much time, much more time, and we continue to work in the next weeks” with his British counterpart.
So uncertain was that prospect that a special EU summit on Brexit that had been pencilled in for next month to finalise a deal was taken off the table.
Rutte said EU leaders would assess the situation in the coming weeks and “stand ready to meet if necessary”. The next official EU summit is scheduled for December.
Despite the lack of progress, the mood music at the summit was positive.
May spoke of “working intensively over the next days and weeks” to achieve agreement and avoid a nodeal departure from the bloc for Britain on March 29 that could create chaos at the borders and in the economy.
A deal must be sealed soon so parliaments have time to give their verdict on it.
May urged her counterparts to redouble efforts to find the way to a deal, but European May spoke a day after Tusk implored her to present new ideas for resolving the tricky problem of how to keep the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Britain’s Northern Ireland friction-free once Britain no longer is an EU member.
Tusk advised May that “creative” thinking from Britain was required to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, the issue that has brought Brexit negotiations to a standstill.
Both sides agree there must be no hard border, but each has rejected the other side’s solution.