Brexit: EU and UK leaders meet to advance negotiations

Representatives from the United Kingdom and the European Union met on Saturday to try to move forward in conversations on the divorce agreement, less than three weeks before the expected date of Brexit.

Both parties are trying to find a way to reach an exit agreement acceptable to British MPs. who rejected a previous pact and will vote again on Tuesday.

Sources in London and Brussels said the "technical dialogues" were continuing on Saturday, but for now, no conversation was organized at the political level.

The Minister of Finance, Philip Hammond, He urged British MPs Saturday to support the deal in any case, which was interpreted as London do not expect the Union to make more concessions.

For its part, Theresa May In a speech on Friday, the European Parliament had called for a "new impetus" in the EU negotiations and warned parliamentarians that a new rejection of the deal would harm the EU Whole process.

"We have been working hard together for over two years in this agreement (…) which provides for an orderly exit from the EU and this creates a platform for ambitious relations in the future, "said the Prime Minister during her speech in the small town of Grimsby, north-east of England, a fishing port that has voted 70% in favor of Brexit in the Referendum of June 2016.

"We just need a last push to address the last specific concerns of our Parliament, so do not hold back, do what is necessary for the deputy ministers to support the agreement," he said. added.

He also indicated that "The decisions that the European Union will take in the coming days will have a significant impact on the outcome of the vote".

Three weeks before the planned Brexit date, on 29 March, contacts between the two parties, described as "difficult" by the British government, did not allow the European Commission to identify "no solution" at the most controversial of the agreement: the Irish safeguard.

This mechanism seeks to avoid the reestablishment of a physical boundary between the Republic of Ireland – an EU member state – and the British province of Northern Ireland, to protect the peace accord that ended in 1998 decades of bloody conflict in the region.

The more Eurosceptic MEPs fear that this measure of protection will leave the country indefinitely trapped in a customs union with the EU, preventing it from negotiating trade agreements with third countries.

But European officials refuse to limit it in time or allow the United Kingdom to unilaterally abandon it.