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Courtesy of the Times.
European Union ministers have expressed their frustration at parliamentary “games” in Westminster and derided Britain for being unable to take a decision on Brexit. EU foreign and European affairs ministers are meeting in Brussels today to prepare for Thursday’s summit of European leaders and an expected British request for a delay to Brexit. Nathalie Loiseau, the French European affairs minister who is responsible for Brexit in France and close to Emmanuel Macron, the French president, mocked Britain’s political chaos. One must have a sense of humour when dealing with Brexit at the moment. Not only me but our fellow citizens,” she said. “We wait for a gesture, a proposition, a strategy from London. We are waiting for a decision, what they want and what they propose to exit this impasse.” She has called her cat Brexit as he is “unsure whether he wants to go out or not” when the door is open. “He wakes me up miaowing like mad because he wants to be let out,” she is reported to have written on her private Facebook page. “As soon as I open the door, he stands in the middle, unsure whether he wants to go out or not. When I put him out, he gives me an evil look.”
Michael Roth, Germany’s Europe minister, said the EU was getting sick of “games” in the House of Commons and would demand clear reasons from Mrs May for a delay to Brexit. “The clock is ticking and time is running out. We’re really exhausted by these negotiations,” he said. “I expect clear and precise proposals from the British government why such an extension is necessary. It’s not just a game, it’s an extremely serious situation, not just for the people in the UK but also for the people in the EU. I don’t have any appetite for substance-less, very abstract discussions and negotiations on Brexit. Please deliver, dear friends in London, please deliver.”
The EU agreed two extension options and the conditions for a long delay to Brexit. If a third meaningful vote, expected next week at the latest, gets the withdrawal agreement through parliament, then the delay will be short, lasting until 30 June. If Mrs May is defeated, as the EU expects, then a long extension — of between nine months and two years — will be agreed.
The extension has to be a “fixed date in order to ensure legal certainty”. Elections will have to be held on 23 May at European Parliament. “In principle it is possible that there is more than one extension. Yet decisions to extend may not be repeated in a manner that would make the duration of the withdrawal indefinite,” said an internal EU paper seen by The Times. “No extension should be granted beyond July 1, unless the European Parliament elections are held at the mandatory date. If they are not held, the extension should terminate its effects before the European Parliament meets on July 2.”
EU will want assurances that Britain will not be a “spoiler” on European legislation by using its veto and voting power to disrupt decisions on Brussels budgets and trade negotiations. “The prolonged presence in the EU framework of a withdrawing state leaves the EU and its other members states in a legally unstable situation that should be balanced with the advantages that are expected from it,” said the paper. Any extension can be cut short if a “withdrawal agreement has entered into force” or “notification of the intention to withdraw has been revoked,” according to the EU paper. Speaking at a Bloomberg event in Berlin, the German chancellor Angela Merkel was asked about John Bercow’s intervention yesterday, when the Commons speaker said the government could not bring the meaningful vote back to parliament without substantial changes. “I admit that I wasn’t on top of the British parliament’s 17th-century procedural rules, so I acknowledged what took place yesterday. Now we’ll have to see what Theresa May tells us, what her demands are — and we will try to react to that. But this is not the case of an agreement that we negotiated alone, but that the British government approved.
