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THE EUROPEAN UNION is prepared to give Britain further Brexit guarantees to help a divorce deal through the British parliament, the bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said in an interview published today
“We can find guarantees to confirm, clarify, guarantee the goodwill and good faith of the Europeans with commitments which would have real legal force,” Barnier said in comments published in several European newspapers including Die Welt in Germany and Les Echos in France.
Barnier also suggested European leaders would be amenable to a short “technical” delay in Britain’s departure from the EU, scheduled for 29 March, to give the British parliament time to formally ratify a final divorce deal.
The British parliament rejected the original Brexit deal hammered out by Prime Minister Theresa May and EU leaders.
With the Irish backstop being the biggest obstacle to agreement in parliament, Barnier said there was “misunderstanding” over the proposed backstop deal.
He said it would not
“Limiting it in time or introducing a unilateral exit clause would call into question its credibility,” the EU’s top Brexit negotiator insisted.
The backstop “will end either when we have a global agreement on the future relationship, or a specific agreement with Ireland,” he said, assuring it “was never the wish” to bind Britain to European trade rules indefinitely.
Meetings next week
Barnier said he would meet Britain’s Brexit minister Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox next week to discuss options.
A Brussels source said those talks could take place in the Belgian capital on Tuesday.
“There is a way that the British (parliament) could vote, between now and March 12th, with these guarantees of our good faith, It will be up to them to fulfil their responsibilities,” Barnier said.
In 2017, the UL invoked Article 50 of EU law, triggering a two-year countdown to Brexit that ends at 11pm on 29 March
It is on course to leave without an agreement after British MPs in January overwhelmingly rejected the divorce deal May struck with the EU late last year.
The embattled leader is now seeking changes to the pact which she hopes will be enough to get it through parliament by 12 March 12.
In a revised strategy unveiled this week, May vowed that if her deal is rejected, lawmakers will vote in the following days on whether to leave without a deal or delay Brexit.
But European leaders have warned any postponement would come with conditions.
Barnier suggested a short delay could be acceptable.
“The European institutions will do whatever is necessary on their side but the British have told us in the past that they will need two months to ratify” the deal.
“It would then require a simple technical extension.”
While Britain is yet to request a delay, “I don’t think there would be any objections in principle” from the other 27 EU nations, Barnier said.
However, any delay “must serve to solve a problem, not merely to postpone it and remain at an impasse.”
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Is retreating to Dad’s Army fantasy and Biggles denial to avoid the contradictions of reality a particularly English national trait? It is quite incredible to see a once logical country donning the personality of a spoilt 3 year old who will ..’ scweem and scweem and scweem until I am sick ..so there’ to pretend that they can have the impossible and are too proud to admit that they are not special and will have to surrender abjectly. What a job that poor guy Barnier has…dealing with the bold infant in the class who just out of bloodymindedness refuses to deal with reality and will have to be chastised…until it learns.
@John Sullivan: or maybe crashing out is the plan given all the terms on how to divorce are an EU construct. But the abject bullying you intimate to, that the ‘EU’ is the only game in town ‘and you’d better believe it’ simply illustrates why leaving really has to be everyones option, before everyones democratic voice is snuffed out
@Martin Critten:
Yawn
@Martin Critten: Then accept the WA and leave. But speaking of democratic voices bear in mind that the GFA which is totally incompatible with Brexit as it undermines Strand II (Dominic Grieve gives an outstanding summary) was ratified in a BINDING not advisory vote and lodged at the UN in NY by the very UK whose unilateral actions undermine it. That is out if the question. So if you want a Biggles fairy tale of post imperial buccaneering then off you go …but NO part of Ireland is going with you. You will be keeping your Agincourt Waterloo myths on your own side of the Irish Sea.
@John Sullivan: The last time I checked, the U.K. held sovereignty over a part, irrespective of any treaty.
@John Sullivan: very well said, John.
You look like the rest of the fools there, Martin Critten – I’m sure you never intended to invoke pity, but interestingly you do.
@Patrick Nolan: passed your bedtime is it?
@Patrick Nolan: Go to bed if your sleepy
@John Sullivan: Oh that poor guy Barnier is???? What a load of pro EU tripe
@Martin Critten: I laugh every time someone says something like that. “The big bad EU bullying Britain with its rules”. Newsflash! Britain is part of the EU and as one of the biggest members has a big say in its rules. Also you might want to do a little research into who drew up the rules for what happens when a country opts to trigger article 50. Spoiler alert, it was Britain several years ago. Who’s idea was the backstop? Britain. Who then went back to the EU and demanded the backstop be UK wide rather than just NI, again it was Britain. But boooo the big bad EU.
And so it begins…
@jamesdecay:
Getting desperate James
The Freedom from Tories Festival may have to be postponed for a few months so keep the few quid together for the biggest celebration ever seen in Brussels.
you have to hand it to him he’s been trying to hypnotise the Brits all week to make them accept the deal. ,one last stab at thought transference there for the cameras in case Teresa May is watching
One of the legs broken on his glasses?
@wattsed56: He’s say “these Brits, they are crazy”
Michael Barnier caught doing racist impression….
@Thomas Mc Donald: great bunch of lads
@Thomas Mc Donald: So fixing your glasses is racist now? FFS!!!
@Anne O’Hara:
Whoosh..
@Anne O’Hara:
Perhaps you should do a little search concerning Oriental impressions which are a little dated and not very amusing.
It wasn’t an accusation – merely a comical observation which you failed to see.
@Anne O’Hara: Is there anything to be said for another mass?
The ERG are using the “heads in the sand “unionists as cannon fodder, because it hides the real objectives behind this backstop curtain. They are intent on breaking the EU on behalf of multinational corporate interests, which want to pick off the member states one by one, starting with little England.
It’s all about international financial interests resisting the ever tightening noose of EU tax avoidance, ala Apple, not about securing the wee north within the Union of Great Britain & Ireland.Global corporate interests can manipulate a checker board of separate states.
And I have no doubt too that the Putinistas have an ambition to weaken the ever strengthening EU on its western flank.
Ireland is a mere pawn in this global chess game,let’s not kid ourselves, but look out for our own future.
@William Kelly: very good point
With less than a month to go to so-called Brexit,Britain is imploding and effectively leaderless in practice !!!
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