The EU won’t be defeated on Brexit, vows Tusk
Council president says it is up to London whether exit talks end with ‘good deal, no deal or no Brexit’
THE European Union will not be “defeated” by Britain in the Brexit negotiations, Donald Tusk said yesterday as he insisted Theresa May would fail in any effort to divide EU leaders.
“No one can divide the 27 in these negotiations,” the president of the European Council said. “Ahead of us is still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat.”
Speaking in the European Parliament in Strasbourg with Jean-claude Juncker, Mr Tusk suggested that if the EU remained firm, the British Government could cancel Brexit.
Mr Tusk, who leads meetings of EU national leaders, told MEPS: “It is in fact up to London how this will end, with a good deal, no deal or no Brexit.” The former prime minister of Poland admitted he was obsessed with the EU’S painstakingly constructed united front, before insisting: “We must keep our unity regardless of the direction of the talks. The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided.”
At last week’s EU summit, heads of state and government said Britain had not made “sufficient progress” in the Brexit negotiations.
The EU is refusing to talk trade or a transition deal until it judges sufficient progress has been achieved on Ireland, citizens’ rights and the Brexit bill.
Mrs May earlier this week issued a fresh threat to walk away from the talks with no deal unless a trade deal is agreed by the summer. Earlier, a humiliating leak from Brussels suggested she had “begged” EU leaders for help.
Mr Juncker, president of the European Commission, told MEPS: “The commission is not negotiating in a hostile mood. We want a deal. Those who don’t want a deal, the ‘no-dealers’, they have no friends in the commission.”
“We want a fair deal with Britain and we will have a fair deal with Britain,” said Mr Juncker. The commission is leading Brexit talks on behalf of the EU. Syed Kamall, Britain’s most senior Conservative MEP, called for more pragmatism from Brussels over Brexit.
“I hope we avoid becoming trapped by the sequencing of the negotiations,” he said. “Let us be more pragmatic.”
Manfred Weber, leader of the centreright European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament, mocked Brexiteers and said the business community in London was nervous. “The Brexiteers have no common plan for the future of their country and especially not for the relationship with EU,” the German MEP said. “We cannot accept that a country outside the EU can have the same conditions and status as a country inside the EU.”
In her Florence speech, Mrs May asked for a two-year transition period after the March 29 2019 date for Brexit.
Mr Weber later said that any transition period should be used to deal with the “leftovers” from the Brexit negotiations sparked by the triggering of Article 50 and not as an excuse to extend the talks indefinitely.
“That will not fly. If there is no achievement then we are risking a hard Brexit,” he told reporters.
“We need an outcome in the next two years – specifically on the future relationship – otherwise we are risking further difficulties.’
The UK and the EU agree that any transition would mean Britain remaining subject to EU law and the European Court of Justice for its duration.
Ray Finch, a Ukip MEP, attacked Mrs May and the Government. “What Mrs May is doing is quietly surrendering so that we will end up neither leaving, nor sovereign,” he said. “We will remain subservient to the EU, both financially and legally, a nation condemned to serve it by its leaders.”
SIR – Donald Tusk has told the EU nations that if they do not remain unified they will be “defeated” in trade talks with Britain. Does the EU have no economists capable of advising him that trade is not a zero-sum game?
Such talks should be about how two major trading powers co-operate on future trade as allies, to their mutual benefit, as the British Government stated in its Article 50 letter and has repeated consistently since.
Couching them in terms of war – of victory or defeat – is not only illogical but dangerous in the extreme for the economies of both parties. Neil Harvey
London SE8
SIR – Despite the complicated choreography of the EU’S negotiators, the deliberately destabilising nature of their strategy is becoming clearer.
First Macron plays hard cop, Merkel soft. Now Juncker denies hostility and protests he wants a deal, while Tusk warns the EU27 that disunity spells defeat. But in that one word, Tusk has given the game away: the Eurocrats mean to defeat us because they know their undemocratic political project will not survive a successful Brexit.
To cancel Brexit is to cancel British democracy. That is why the Prime Minister is surely right to prepare for all options and to be clear on a deadline.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
London SW1
SIR – Does anyone seriously believe that, if Brexit were to be reversed (Comment, October 24), we would be allowed to resume our membership of the EU on the same terms as those that existed prior to the triggering of Article 50?
R J Plester
Wokingham, Berkshire