THE EU issued Prime Minister Theresa May a final Brexit warning yesterday - put your cards on the table, offer ways to overcome “huge” differences and prevent Britain from crashing out of the bloc without a deal.
On the second day of a summit more focused on migration than Brexit, leaders of the other 27 EU countries were united in stepping up the pressure on May to overcome rifts in her government and progress with all-but-stalled talks.
May, who left the summit after the first day, has been reluctant to explain detailed Brexit plans because of deep divisions in her Conservative Party over the terms of Britain’s biggest foreign policy shift in almost half a century.
But she has promised to thrash out an agreement with her top team of ministers next week and intends to present a policy document, or white paper, setting out the government’s aims for a future partnership after that.
With only nine months before Britain leaves the EU, it cannot come soon enough for summit chairman Donald Tusk and the bloc’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier.
“This is the last call to lay the cards on the table,” Tusk said, adding to growing calls for Britain to move quickly to try to secure a deal by October.
Barnier repeated the warning that “time is short”.
“Now we are waiting for the UK white paper and I hope it will contain workable and realistic proposals. But let me mention once again that the time is very short,” he said.
The white paper will set out Britain’s vision for its future relationship with the EU, something that has hobbled attempts to settle a divorce agreement, especially over pledges on both side to prevent a return to a hard border on Ireland.
The lack of a proposal on how to keep a near-invisible border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland has stalled Brexit talks, increasing frustration among the other leaders.
The summit’s conclusions underlined the leaders’ concerns “that no substantial progress has yet been achieved on agreeing a backstop solution for Ireland/Northern Ireland” but again held out the possibility of flexibility if “the UK positions were to evolve”.
After a dinner to try to hammer out a deal on a crisis over migration, Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, summed up the agreement on Brexit with a tweet: “Almost 9 hours to approve MigrationEU conclusions, not even 1 minute to approve Brexit conclusions. EU can still work together.”
May reiterated yesterday she was “ready to intensify and accelerate the pace of negotiations”, but only after warning EU leaders to consider Europe’s safety before cutting Britain adrift from its security architecture.
Security is seen by British officials as one of the country’s strongest cards to play in the talks, but another of May’s pledges - to leave the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice - has made continued cooperation more difficult.
Asked whether she was bringing up security to try to deflect attention from a dearth of proposals on future trade, she said: “No, the future security partnership we have with the European Union will be very important.