EU readies hardball summit for UK PM
European Union leaders were to give British Prime Minister Theresa May a tough reception in Brussels yesterday, warning her to rally support at home for the Brexit deal on offer or be cut loose without one in March.
May will address the other 27 EU national leaders at a summit before they dine without her. Officials said they expected the leaders to tell May they have little more to offer since talks stalled on Sunday and will step up preparations for Britain to drop out of the bloc with no deal.
Summit chair Donald Tusk said the risk of a "no deal" taking Britain out of the bloc and into legal limbo and border chaos on March 29 was greater than ever.
He put the onus on May to bring a "creative" solution to break the impasse over the EU-UK land border on the island of Ireland.
The "no deal" message is sincere enough. It is also a tactic to pressure a negotiating partner the EU views as weak. And it might help May by giving her the kind of political theatre useful in persuading Britons she has fought for the best deal.
After an intense week of talks, London on Sunday walked away from a deal in which the EU offered to extend the post-Brexit transition by a year until the end of 2021 in a way to make the emergency fix for the Irish border more palatable to Britain.
This "two-tier backstop" would keep Britain in the EU's single market and customs union for longer, giving sides more time to work out a new trade deal that would maintain an open Irish border from then on.
The EU insists on guarantees that extensive border checks would not return on the island of Ireland regardless of how Brexit goes, something London is finding difficult to accept as it would include some trade barriers emerging inside the UK.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there was still a chance of concluding an agreement for an orderly exit for Britain from the European Union, but Berlin was preparing for all options, including the possibility of a no-deal departure.
Germany's preparations for the possibility of Britain leaving the EU without a withdrawal agreement included looking at the status of the roughly 100,000 British citizens who lived in Germany and the status of those of them who were German state employees.
"I want Britain to be a close and trusting partner for Europe after leaving," she said.
"But it must be clear that in the end there will always be a difference between membership of the EU and being a partner," she added.
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