European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday dismissed plans for post-Brexit relations with London, reportedly devised by the British government, as “based on pure illusion.”
Tusk’s comments came after British Prime Minister Theresa May’s Cabinet agreed on Britain’s plans for the future relationship at a marathon meeting. She is due to unveil them in a speech on Friday next week.
“I’m glad that the UK government seems to be moving toward a more detailed position,” said Tusk, who is to meet May in London the day before her speech.
“However if the media reports are correct, I am afraid that the UK position today is based on pure illusion,” Tusk told a news conference after a summit in Brussels.
One British minister, who was not present during the Cabinet talks in London, said they had agreed that Britain would seek to align itself with EU rules in certain sectors of the economy, but would retain the right to diverge.
“It looks like the cake philosophy is still alive,” Tusk said, referring to earlier comments by British officials that they wanted to “have their cake and eat it too” when it came to leaving the EU’s single market and enjoying its benefits.
The EU president said there could be “no cherry-picking and no single market a la carte” for Britain, and that the EU would be “absolutely realistic in our proposals.”
“The president of the council was offering you the headline for tomorrow,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told reporters.
Their comments capped a day of digs at the British side in the increasingly tense negotiations over Britain’s planned departure from the EU in March next year.
Juncker took a swipe at former British prime minister David Cameron, who opposed Juncker’s appointment in 2014, but lost his own job two years later after losing the Brexit referendum he had called himself.
“Where is Mr Cameron now?” he asked.
“I have heard some rumors that he is in a quiet, comfortable position,” Tusk quipped.
Juncker had earlier joked that he could do the job better.
“I am not the British prime minister; it would be good for Britain if I was it, but I am not,” Juncker said.
May is under pressure to set out more details of her position before talks get under way on the future partnership in April, but with Brussels warning that Britain cannot have everything it wants.
Tusk said EU leaders would adopt their guidelines for the future relationship at a summit from March 22 to March 23 “whether the UK is ready with its vision or not.”
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar added to the pressure.
“We’d like to see a very close relationship between the UK and the EU, one that isn’t very different from the one we have now, but I don’t think the United Kingdom has yet squared the circle,” he said. “Sooner or later that fundamental issue will have to be confronted and I think it would be better done sooner.”
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