May says Irish support can not derail Brexit negotiations

LONDON (Reuters) – US Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday urged the European Union not to let standstill on "support" for Ireland to derail Negotiations on Brexit, claiming that an agreement was still achievable, said a no-fault divorce official had increased.

Sending to a rude session of Parliament before heading to Brussels for a summit on Wednesday, May remained optimistic, but she repeated that she would not accept anything that could divide the Kingdom. -United.

Less than six months before Britain leaves the bloc, talks ended this weekend on how not to restore a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and Ireland , member of the EU.

The stalemate allowed Britain to leave the bloc without an agreement, a "no agreement" Brexit that could potentially disrupt trade, delay the movement of goods and deprive the world's fifth largest economy of investment.

European Council President Donald Tusk said the scenario was "more likely than ever before" and the EU should be ready to do so, even if all parties should do their best to achieve a agreement.

He said that he had invited May to address 27 peers from the European Union at Brexit on Wednesday night.

May said it was frustrating that "almost all the remaining points of disagreement were about how we are managing a scenario that both parties hope will never come to fruition and which, if any, would only be temporary.

"We can not let this disagreement derail the prospects for a good deal and leave us with a result of" no agreement "that nobody wants," she told Parliament.

Highlighting the economic importance of Brexit, the chairman of the British pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca has announced that it would maintain the investment freeze in the manufacturing sector in the country unless an agreement clarifies future links.

DIVISIONS ON SHOW

The 2016 referendum on EU membership has deeply divided Britain and these differences have been demonstrated in Parliament, where May has received more requests for comfort than words of support from the United States. legislators, even from his own conservative party.

May tried to explain the obstacles, which she described as essentially technical, which had wiped out any hope of reaching an agreement during the Sunday negotiations in Brussels.

She said that the EU was committed to a proposal to keep Northern Ireland in its customs union if a UK-wide plan had not been implemented. not ready to be put in place when a transitional agreement expires at the end of 2020.

May insists that any customs arrangement under the backstop must be temporary and end no later than December 2021, but the EU has refused to set an end date.

May described this as a request "from a backstop to a backstop" and reiterated that Northern Ireland could not be treated differently from the rest of Britain.

"As I have said many times, I could never accept that, as unlikely as such a scenario could be," she said.

But May still faces a fight to appease the concerns of the EU, but also of its conservative party and its partners in parliament, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland.

DUP's Nigel Dodds asked May to reassure herself that she would stick to Britain leaving her country, rolling her eyes as she responded by repeating familiar phrases.

May must also try to keep his eurosceptics in his party. His former foreign minister, become the strongest critic, Boris Johnson, has urged him to set a firm time limit at any security post.

European leaders have expressed disappointment at the fact that the home stretch has canceled the possibility of an agreement this weekend. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said: "For the moment, it actually seems a bit more difficult."

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said any deal "would now take a little longer than many would have hoped."

But a spokeswoman for May expressed hope, saying that there were "a number of ways to achieve what we want to achieve" on the backstop, but declined to give details.

And, in a change of tone, Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, told the press that she also hoped for a "reasonable" Brexit.

Nigel Farage, who headed the UKIP (UK Independence Party), was one of the main supporters of the campaign for the release of the 2016 EU membership referendum, said He thought the negotiations were "bumped into a wall".