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Reuters
Prime Minister wants to postpone Brexit to June 30 – but EU should wait longer
EU leaders must meet in Brussels for an emergency summit in order to decide whether to offer a new deadline in the UK for Brexit.
Prime Minister Theresa May wants to postpone the date on which the UK will leave the EU beyond this Friday, until June 30th.
But the EU should offer a longer deadline, after European Council President Donald Tusk has urged the 27 other leaders to support a flexible extension of up to one year, with conditions.
All EU Member States must hear before a deadline can be granted.
The UK is currently scheduled to leave the EU at 23:00 BST on Friday 12 April.
So far, British MPs have rejected May's withdrawal agreement reached with other European leaders last year. She is now asking that the departure date be postponed. If no extension is granted, the default position would be to leave on Friday without an agreement.
May will travel to Belgium this afternoon after her weekly clash with opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn at the Prime Minister's sitting in the House of Commons.
The confrontation follows five days of talks between the government and Labor representatives to get out of the Brexit stalemate.
At the summit – which begins around 18:00 local time (17:00 BST) on Wednesday evening – Ms May will formally present her dossier for a short deadline, ie until 30 June, with the possibility for the United Kingdom to leave earlier if its Brexit agreement is ratified.
The other European leaders will then dine without her and discuss how to react.
"Do not humiliate each other"
In an official letter to leaders on the eve of the summit, Mr Tusk proposed a longer and flexible extension – although "no more than a year" – in order to avoid creating more "money". extensions at the edge of cliffs or emergency summits in the future.
Any delay should be subject to conditions, he said, including that there would be no reopening of negotiations on the withdrawal agreement. And the UK would have the opportunity to leave earlier if an agreement on Brexit was ratified.
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EPA
Frenchmen Emmanuel Macron and Donald Tusk of the EU invited Ms May to join a group photo at the EU summit last month
Referring to Ms. May's proposal regarding an extension until the end of June, he added that there was "little reason to believe" that Ms. May's agreement could be ratified from here.
And if the European Council does not agree at all on an extension, "there would be an accidental risk of Brexit," he said.
Mr. Tusk also warned that "no party should feel humiliated at any stage of this difficult process".
EU officials have prepared a draft document that leaders should consider at the summit. The deadline has not been completed and will be indicated at the end of the proceedings.
BBC Europe's editor-in-chief Katya Adler said the delay had been left in the conclusions, showing that EU leaders were still divided on the issue.
BBC correspondent for Europe, Kevin Connolly, said "a lot of things had been explained in advance", including the condition that if the UK remains a member of the EU. EU at the end of May, he will have to hold elections to the European Parliament or be forced to leave immediately.
He added that during this period, the UK should commit to not disrupt EU activities, such as the preparation of the next budget, and that its influence "would be greatly reduced and its voice attenuated".
On Tuesday, Ms. May went to Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, then to Berlin to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, hoping to seek their support for her shorter lead time.
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Ms Merkel then said that a delay up to the end of this year or early 2020 was a possibility.
In a statement, Downing Street said the prime minister and Chancellor Merkel agreed on the importance of ensuring the orderly withdrawal of Britain.
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May told Macron that the government is working hard to avoid the need to hold elections to the European Parliament
Meanwhile, negotiations between Labor and the Conservatives must resume after May's return from the summit.
Secretary of the Environment Michael Gove said the talks were "open and constructive", but the parties disagreed on "a number of areas". Rebecca Long Bailey, secretary of state for labor organization at Labor, said she "hopes that progress will be made."
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