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BRUSSELS – European leaders on Thursday took control of the break between the European Union and the European Union by sparing British Prime Minister Theresa May the economic earthquake caused by an uncontrolled departure of the bloc next week, while demanding that it pbad an agreement or propose an alternative on April 12th.
The decision was a harsh verdict on May's political sense. The ensuing cross-examination led her confrères to think that she had no political strategy for making a divorce agreement, nor that she knew how Britain would resist an uncontrolled Brexit. next Friday.
May had promised the British that Brexit would help them regain control of Europe. Instead, she found that her 27 colleagues, U. The leaders resumed her decisions by dictating a political timetable for the coming weeks, giving both parties time to prepare for the worst.
If British lawmakers approve a divorce deal that they have twice rejected, they may leave the EU on May 22. If they refuse, they must plan an alternative by April 12 or fall off the same cliff without agreement that night.
In any case, the decisions will be forced before May's three-month deadline in Brussels.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives in Brussels for a Brexit-focused summit meeting. (Emmanuel Dunand / AFP / Getty Images)
May told reporters that she was pleased with the extension. She said the options and deadlines for UK legislators were now "very clear".
"What today's decision underlines is the importance for the House of Commons to reach an agreement on Brexit next week to end the uncertainty and leave in a harmonious and orderly way" , she said.
May seemed relatively optimistic and factual, and took the trouble to reach out to lawmakers. The accusing and accusing attitude of the previous night disappeared when she criticized Parliament by claiming that it was the fault of legislators for the Brexit delay.
But European leaders have little hidden that they were fed up.
"The EU, to be clear, is facing a British political crisis," said French President Emmanuel Macron, who called for an uncompromising position in the talks. "British politicians are unable to deliver what people have asked them to do. People voted for Brexit, but we find ourselves in a situation where the British Parliament tells us that it will not vote for the agreement we have negotiated for two years. "
Leaders felt May was so far removed from the political realities that a European diplomat called his badessments "a bit like if they came from another planet". The manager and others talked about the condition of anonymity to tell the interviews.
In the pictures of the US. The leaders greeted each other in Brussels before embarking on business, joked May with the Luxembourg Prime Minister, who a few minutes ago had threatened to drive Britain out of the EU. without agreement. She exchanged a tense and unsmiling double-strike with the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, with whom she got entangled and took a particularly hard line against her.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker welcomes British Prime Minister Theresa May. (Aris Oikonomou / AFP / Getty Images)
One after the other, the leaders took turns around a ring shaped table to hammer May about his political strategy, his preparations for a departure without agreement and why she wanted three more months. According to each diplomat, they found that she was missing every question after taking a good deal of her discussion time to read a letter that leaders had already seen the day before. In total, she spent nearly two hours grilling, an eternity in the world closely choreographed high-stakes summits.
"One could feel the patience run out," said a manager.
After being fired from the room, the leaders spoke to each other and dissuaded May from an orange duck dinner to make an agreement. The Bulgarian ambbadador to the European Union tweeted the photo of a scrum of senior officials gathered in a hallway, some squatting on the floor as they were arguing over the details.
At the end of the evening, after May spent four hours outside the hall, the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, announced the news. She had been granted a stay – but not the one she had requested.
The extension provides "so many options," Tusk later told reporters. He added that Britain would always have the choice between an agreement, an agreement, a big delay or the cancellation of Brexit.
Until April 12, he said, "all options will remain open and the date of the cliff edge will be delayed".
The date of April is the deadline for organizing the European Parliament elections at the end of May, a necessary step, US leaders believe that Britain must stay beyond the union.
The succession of jerky deadlines puts additional pressure on British lawmakers to transcend party boundaries in order to approve some kind of agreement. It also gives US political coverage of leaders with their own voters if Britain leaves without a safety net because they can say that they have done everything they can to avoid it.
Economists and political badysts have warned that a A Brexit without agreement could lead to a halt in trade and travel and harm the UK and European economies.
At the moment, many US policy makers can no longer hope for a second referendum that could reverse the Brexit decision and think that it's better to separate and go from there. Before – a marked change on a continent that had once wanted Britain to stay.
[Can Brexit be stopped? 800,000 people are trying so hard that Parliament’s website is broken.]
"We do not want in the coming months, in the years to come, to be occupied by Brexit," said Guy Verhofstadt, European Parliament coordinator for Brexit, who published on Twitter nostalgic videos calling on the British to abandon the Brexit. "We want to be busy with the renewal of the European Union," he told reporters before the meeting.
Prime Minister Theresa May addresses reporters in Brussels before the summit. (Jasper Juneen / Bloomberg)
When May opened the two-year Brexit window, Brexite experts said the quarrelsome European countries would soon succumb to the British negotiating team. Instead, the Europeans remained exceptionally united, while the two British prime ministers of Brexit resigned to protest the agreements they agreed on.
May and British lawmakers accuse each other of not agreeing on the way forward.
May's agreement was rejected by 149 votes on March 12 – and by 230 votes on January 15. Both votes were widely described as humiliations. Many members of his Conservative party voted against the Prime Minister's exit plan and promised to do it again.
May has to convince at least 75 lawmakers to support the exit agreement, including the 10-member Northern Ireland Democratic Union Party, which supports its minority government. She also needs at least some of the most rebellious and hardcore Tory Brexiteers, as well as some Labor Party legislators, to get through it. This will not be easy.
Some of the 48% of people who voted to stay in the European Union in the June 2016 Brexit referendum were increasingly worried about what might happen in the next few days.
An online audience The petition calling for the cancellation of Brexit in May drew more than 2 million signatures in just a few hours, shattering the website once traffic had increased.
Booth brought back from London. Karla Adam in London and James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.
Read more
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How a Brexit without agreement could create chaos in Europe
What is Brexit? The ongoing drama in Britain, explained.
Today's coverage of Swiss Post correspondents around the world
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