Hindustan Surkhiyan Desk: Frustrated European ministers yesterday insisted there was still time to reach a Brexit deal despite the latest failed round of divorce talks, but the EU warned it was stepping up preparations for failure.
Meeting in Luxembourg, foreign ministers from the bloc’s 28 members admitted that no agreement will be struck this week at an EU leaders’ summit that had earlier been billed as the “moment of truth”.
EU Brexit pointman Michel Barnier met his British counterpart Dominic Raab in Brussels on Sunday, but they failed to agree to a draft Brexit divorce arrangement, as EU leaders prepare to arrive on Wednesday for the summit.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, whose country would suffer the biggest economic impact after the United Kingdom from a “no-deal” Brexit, said the latest stumble was “frustrating and disappointing”.
And in Brussels, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the bloc’s own “no deal” preparations were being stepped up.
“While we are working hard for a deal, our preparedness and contingency work is continuing and intensifying,” spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a political high-wire act in trying to reach a deal that is acceptable to both the EU and lawmakers at home, where her minority government relies on the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
May said yesterday she still believes a Brexit deal is “achievable”. “We cannot let this disagreement derail the prospects of a good deal, and leave us with the ‘no deal’ outcome that no-one wants,” she told MPs in the House of Commons.
Highlighting the challenges she faces, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson yesterday warned it was “probably inevitable” Britain would leave the EU with no deal.
“Given the way in which the EU has behaved and the corner they’ve put Theresa May into, there’s no deal which I can see at present which will command a majority in the House of Commons,” he told the Belfast Newsletter.
But ministers in Luxembourg insisted there was still time to resolve the outstanding issues, including the dispute over rules for trade in and out of Northern Ireland.
“I think this is obviously a difficult period,” British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt told reporters as he arrived for a scheduled meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
“There was always going to be a moment like this, but we should remember that a huge amount of progress has been made. There are one or two very outstanding issues, but I think we can get there.”
