Emotions run high as Merkel and May lose their patience
ANGELA MERKEL had heard enough. After a 10-minute presentation by Theresa May and a discussion in which she had used the time-worn phrase “Brexit means Brexit”, the German Chancellor ran out of patience.
“What else do you want?” the exasperated Mrs Merkel demanded after the Prime Minister had failed to explain what it was she actually expected her counterparts to offer.
For Mrs May it was a new experience. At previous summits her pitch was made to a silent audience. She then left the room so they could dissect her words. According to witnesses, Thursday night’s exchange was deeply uncomfortable. “She just did not have an answer,” said a senior EU source.
Mrs May had made the strategic error of arriving in Brussels without a written explanation of what she wanted from the 27 other EU leaders. Her language was admirable enough: “We must get this right,” she said. “Let’s hold nothing in reserve. Let’s get this deal over the line in the interests of all our people.”
But when the leaders probed her on exactly how the intractable issue of the Northern Ireland backstop could be solved, she appeared to be taken aback.
Between five and 10 leaders hit her with questions over what her strategy was to get the deal through Parliament.
One source said the encounter was neither interrogation nor negotiation, “more an exercise in active listening”.
There was frustration that Mrs May had called off the meaningful vote in Parliament that was to pave the way for endorsement of the Brexit deal both sides had spent 18 months negotiating. The EU-27 wanted an explanation but they were to be disappointed.
She told them Parliament would not agree to a Brexit deal that had an openended Northern Ireland backstop. There had to be legally binding assurances that would “change the perception that the backstop could be a trap from which the UK could not escape”.
One EU leader pointed out there were already guarantees that were legally binding. Another asked where her “landing zone” was, where she wanted the British relationship with
1: ‘You called me nebulous,’ says Theresa May, repeating herself when Jean-claude Juncker seems not to understand her 2: ‘Nebulous, yes you did,’ – Mrs May is insistent as Mr Juncker attempts to defend himself by saying ‘No I didn’t, I didn’t’
3: Mrs May continues to press the point as the cameraman leaves the room, with Mr Juncker seemingly backing down 4: Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, steps in to try to defuse the situation
Europe to finish. A source said Mrs May simply replied: “Brexit means Brexit.”
The mood in the room turned to scepticism. One leader, thought to be Charles Michel, Belgium’s prime minister, asked Mrs May how she could be sure Parliament would pass the deal even if Brussels gave in to her demands.
Diplomatic sources described the Prime Minister as legalistic, unclear and muddled in her presentation, confusing the leaders, creating the impression “she was not too sure of what she was saying”. A source said: “Everything was rather too clear. Theresa May wants a renegotiation. The EU-27 do not.”
It was never meant to be this way. Before the summit, London had been in contact with top EU officials to choreograph a two-step rescue of the deal.
Olly Robbins, Mrs May’s chief Brexit negotiator, met Piotr Serafin, from the European Council, and Martin Selmayr, the secretary general of the European Commission. Mr Robbins and the influential officials had cooked up agreed language to be published afterwards.
Leaked six-paragraph summit conclusions suggested the EU-27 would offer warm words before Christmas and, tantalisingly, a commitment to the prospect of further assurances.
“The idea was to give her some candy now and some more candy after Christmas,” an EU diplomat said.
Austria holds the rotating presidency of the EU and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz had been in regular contact with Mrs May. On Thursday morning, he gave an interview predicting legally binding assurances would be forthcoming but the Withdrawal Agreement would not be reopened.
He hinted some form of legal guarantee could be offered in the new year as a boost to her chances of convincing Parliament to back the deal.
“That is possible,” he told Der Standard newspaper. “It is our goal to find a provision that works for both sides.”
Angela Merkel was understood to be on board and the signs were promising – but things were to go terribly wrong.
At the end of questions, Mrs May was asked to leave the room and the EU-27 leaders left the fifth floor of the Europa building for dinner in the more intimate surroundings of the 11th floor. In a behind-closed-doors meeting lasting more than three hours, they discussed what their response should be over a dinner of shellfish, steamed cod and chocolate and almond pudding.
The EU rejected each and every one of the UK’S gambits. They refused to offer Mrs May an interpretative document like that written to overcome Wallonia’s objections to the CETA trade deal with Canada – a legally binding aspiration for a trade deal by 2021 – and they refused to annex the political declaration to the Withdrawal Agreement.
Mrs Merkel and Mark Rutte, of the Netherlands, argued alone and unsuccessfully that paragraph five of the conclusions, which promised the Union would look at assurances for Britain, should be spared the chop.
Another leader, supported by the French, Belgians and Danes, pointed out yet again if the EU gave up too much too early the Brexiteers would want more. So leaders decided to send a chill message to the recalcitrant MPS in Westminster to concentrate minds.
The promise to consider future assurances was excised. The promise of a January summit went up in smoke. Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister, said the assurances were already robust. The EU would continue with the ratification but there were no plans for another summit, he said.
“A lot of prime ministers were called to Brussels at short notice on a Sunday in November. I don’t think they would be willing to come to Brussels again,” he said, adding he was “happy with the conclusions and very much a case in the EU of it being one for all and all for one”.
Lars Lokke Rasmussen, the Danish prime minister, said it was up to the British to create a national consensus, “as we did in Denmark when the Danes rejected the Maastricht treaty, in order to tell us exactly what to do to get this through the British Parliament”.
At midnight on Thursday evening, Jean-claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, stuck the boot
"The idea was to give her some candy now and some more candy after Christmas’
"Our UK friends need to say what they want instead of asking us to say what we want’
into Mrs May at a press conference. He had already raised eyebrows by wearing a green tie in a show of Irish support.
“Our UK friends need to say what they want instead of asking us to say what we want,” he said. “This debate is sometimes nebulous and we would like clarification.”
His comments stood in stark contrast to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, who had simply read out the truncated conclusions.
Sebastian Kurz was unimpressed. He was asked if it was true that Mrs May had been unclear. “No,” he said. One EU diplomat said: “Not only has he [Juncker] departed from the agreed line but he is not telling the truth.”
Mrs May was plainly furious. She has her mantra, “I have been clear”, even though in the eyes of the EU, she is infuriatingly opaque. With steely gaze and handbag at her side, she marched up to Mr Juncker in the very same room she had faced questions and put the president on the rack.
“What did you call me? You called me nebulous,” she told the Luxembourger, who protested his innocence. “You did,” she insisted. Mr Rutte stepped in to break up the confrontation.
“I had a robust discussion with Jeanclaude Juncker,” Mrs May later told reporters before insisting the Brexit show and the hunt for legally binding assurances, was still on. As for Mr Juncker, he was his incorrigible self.
“I did not refer to her but the overall state of the debate in Britain,” he said.
“Having checked what I said, she was kissing me.”