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The European Union is prepared to take Brexit down to a last-minute, high-stakes summit rather than cave into UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s demands over the next few weeks, diplomats have said.
Although May is getting ready to head back to Brussels to reopen the Brexit deal that she negotiated over the past 18 months, the EU isn’t planning to give her any concessions before she returns for a vote in the British Parliament on February 14, according to the diplomats. Behind closed doors, European officials are sticking to their well-coordinated public line that they won’t rework the deal.
The EU is in no rush to convene an emergency meeting of EU leaders, which would be necessary for any changes to the deal or for a Brexit-day delay. Diplomats point to a scheduled summit on March 21-22 - just seven days before the UK is due to leave the bloc - as the moment when the two sides could be forced to act. Some senior figures in the EU believe the UK needs to be all but out of options before accepting the deal, diplomats said.
“This is not a game,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a speech in Brussels on Wednesday, as he reiterated the importance of the so-called backstop arrangement to prevent a hard Irish border, which is the most contentious part of the deal. He added that Tuesday’s House of Commons voting increased the risk of a disorderly exit and the EU won’t reopen the deal.
Irish Backstop
As the threat of economic turmoil looms over the country, May, who said Tuesday she has a mandate to renegotiate the deal, isn’t expected in Brussels this week. She held telephone calls with EU President Donald Tusk and Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar late Wednesday.
“Yesterday, we found out what the UK doesn’t want, but we still don’t know what the U.K does want,” Tusk tweeted after the call. Varadkar told May that the need for the backstop had been reinforced.
European governments now think that a Brexit postponement is increasingly likely, officials briefed on a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday said. However, they remain divided over how long a postponement should be.
‘Borders and Division’
While the EU won’t budge on the part of the Brexit deal covering the backstop, it is open to reworking some of the language related to future UK-EU relations in a bid to convince British members of Parliament that the backstop might never be needed, diplomats said.
As the EU dug in, Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney used to speech to say it’s “crystal clear” that the government won’t allow economic self-interest to trump concerns around the Northern Ireland peace process.
“It is vitally important that politicians in Westminster understand the overwhelming wish across society in Northern Ireland not to return to the borders and division of times past,” Coveney said, in a signal that the government in Dublin isn’t going to soften its stance on the need for the backstop.
The European Commission stepped up its no-deal contingency planning. Plans include a request for the UK to continue paying into the bloc’s budget in 2019 - even if the UK doesn’t agree to the deal - so that projects in Britain retain EU funding.
