French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday backed holding further talks to avoid Britain crashing out of the EU without a deal, but rejected major concessions, as he hosted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Echoing comments by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron supported allowing another month to find a solution to the vexed issue of the Irish border that has bedeviled negotiations since 2017.
However, he also said the so-called Irish backstop was “indispensable” and all talks have to be based on the withdrawal deal negotiated by former British prime minister Theresa May.
Photo: Reuters
“We need to try to have a useful month,” Macron said alongside Johnson, adding that France was nonetheless planning for all scenarios and “notably that of no deal” when Britain exits the EU on Oct. 31.
Johnson said that solutions were “readily available” to prevent checkpoints returning in divided Ireland.
A senior EU official in Brussels told reporters ahead of the talks in Paris that the European side was “a little concerned based on what we heard” on Wednesday from Johnson in Berlin.
“The EU and member states need to take the possibility of a ‘no deal’ outcome much more seriously than before,” the EU official said on condition of anonymity.
A French official on Wednesday said that this was becoming the “most likely” scenario.
However, the window offered by France and Germany to find a solution led to renewed optimism in financial markets, where the pound rose by as much as 1 percent against the euro and the US dollar.
“Let’s get Brexit done, let’s get it done sensibly and pragmatically in the interests of both sides,” Johnson said.
Speaking in the Netherlands later on Thursday, Merkel said that Britain had right up to the current deadline on Oct. 31 to find a solution to the Irish border problem, beyond the 30-day window she mentioned on Wednesday.
Johnson said that he had been “powerfully encouraged” by his talks with Germany’s leader.
“I admire that ‘can do’ spirit that she seemed to have,” he said.
However, many Brexit watchers saw Merkel’s remarks as fitting a pattern in which Merkel has often been more conciliatory in public about Brexit than Macron, whose abrasive remarks have angered London.
“There is not the width of cigarette paper between Paris and Berlin on these issues,” a senior aide to Macron said on Wednesday.
Mujtaba Rahman, Europe managing director for the Eurasia Group consultancy, interpreted the offer of talks as a minor concession designed to avoid the EU being seen as being responsible for a “no deal” Brexit.
“They’re saying to Boris, you insist this can be done another way. You have 30 days to produce what you, the British, could not produce in two years,” he wrote on Twitter.
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