British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday traveled to Brussels for Brexit talks, trapped between her colleagues who want her to re-write the deal and European leaders who say they will walk away if she does.
May was scheduled to meet European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday evening in an effort to make progress on an outline of the future trade deal the two sides want to strike.
She wants EU leaders to sign off on the 585-page exit agreement as well as the future partnership paper at a special summit in Brussels on Sunday.
However, euroskeptics in her Conservative Party want her to rip up key parts of the deal and demand more concessions from the EU before the plan is signed off.
The opposition to the deal has gone down badly with EU leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, amid concern from diplomats that Sunday’s summit will need to be canceled if May pushes for more changes.
Merkel yesterday told German lawmakers that the UK cannot set unilateral terms for leaving the EU.
Addressing lower-house lawmakers in Berlin, Merkel gave short shrift to Brexit while pleading for stronger bonds between EU nations and criticizing go-it-alone policies as false patriotism.
“We also know how difficult the debate in Britain is,” she said. “What’s been important to us is that Britain can’t decide unilaterally when it ends the customs union, but rather has to define that timeframe jointly with the EU.”
Believing that “you can solve everything on your own” is “the purest form of nationalism, not patriotism,” Merkel said to applause. “Patriotism is when you place German interests in the service of win-win situations.”
Time for delays is running out. Britain’s withdrawal from the EU is now just over four months away.
May is staggering on, wounded at home by a succession of damaging resignations from her Cabinet from ministers who cannot stomach her deal.
At the same time, rank-and-file Tories are trying to drum up enough support for a formal attempt to oust her as their leader. For now, their plot appears to be faltering.
Even so, with no automatic majority in the British parliament, May is facing a colossal task to persuade enough members of the House of Commons to support her deal in a crunch vote expected next month.
If she loses that vote, the UK will be on track to crash out of the EU with no deal.
House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee Chairman Damian Collins yesterday told BBC’s Today program that he is going to vote against May’s deal in its current form, adding his name to a list of Tories who will not back it.
If it does fail in parliament, he said May should call either an election or another referendum.
May’s talks with Juncker are to focus on the so-called future partnership, the trade and security relationship that will replace EU membership. The details of that accord are to be negotiated during a 21-month transition period that starts on March 29.
However, the terms of the separate exit treaty are already contentious.
At a Cabinet meeting in London on Tuesday, May’s ministers discussed alternative plans for the most difficult issue in the talks: the backstop guarantee for avoiding a customs border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
On Tuesday night, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which props up May’s minority government, refused to vote with the government in protest over May’s Brexit deal for Ireland.
Without the DUP’s support, the government was forced to accept Labour Party amendments to its budget law.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion