EU preparing for no-deal Brexit summit in November: Report
Leaders of the European Union member states are preparing to hold an emergency summit in November to discuss Britain’s withdrawal from the bloc without a deal, despite previous reports suggesting that the two sides could reach a comprehensive agreement by that time.
The Guardian newspaper revealed on Sunday that EU leaders were mulling the extraordinary meeting should British Prime Minister Theresa May fail to come forward with proposals that could remove the key stumbling block in Brexit talks, namely the future situation of the border between EU member Ireland and UK province of Northern Ireland.
Earlier reports had suggested that Britain and the EU would hold the November meeting to finalize a Brexit agreement.
EU leaders had warned the UK premier last month that she should provide the bloc with a lasting solution to the issue of Irish border by the time of the EU summit this week in Brussels.
However, pressures have grown on May, especially from inside Britain, where fierce pro-Brexit voices have warned that they would certainly reject a Brexit deal that compromises on issues like the Irish border and bilateral trade.
In the latest blow to May’s plan for reaching a compromise, Northern Ireland’s dominant political party warned on Saturday that it would prefer no deal to a bad deal that would allow the EU to include the region in its customs union for a two-year transition period and even beyond that after the Brexit date, which is March 29, 2019.
The extraordinary EU summit on 17-18 November was supposed to end in a political declaration on future Britain-EU trade cooperation if the two sides had managed to solve differences on the Irish border before the meeting.
However, a senior EU diplomat said leaders of the bloc would coordinate their responses to a contingency in which Britain’s departure without a deal would create problems for national governments.
“Preparations on contingency are really advancing in almost all member states,” said the sources.
"We’re going to do this anyhow whatever the outcome because even if there’s a positive outcome [this week] we’ll still need to continue preparedness and contingency because we can never exclude the possibility that negotiations will break down at a later stage,” the sources said.
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