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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

EU tells Britain’s May ‘decide what you want’

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BRUSSELS: The European Union has a message for Prime Minister Theresa May as she plots a path out of the Brexit impasse: Britain needs to take ownership and decide what it really wants but the negotiated divorce deal will not be reopened.


With less than nine weeks until the United Kingdom is due by law to leave the European Union on March 29, there is no agreement yet in London on how and even


whether to leave the world’s biggest trading bloc.


Parliament defeated May’s deal two weeks ago by a huge margin, with many Brexit-supporting rebels in her Conservative Party angry at the Irish “backstop”, an insurance policy aimed at preventing a hard border in Ireland if no other solutions can be agreed.


Ahead of Tuesday’s votes in the British parliament on a way forward, lawmakers in May’s party are pushing for her to demand the European Union drop the backstop and replace it with something else.


“It is quite a challenge to see how you can construct from a diversity of the opposition a positive majority for the deal,” Weyand told a Brussels conference organised by the European Policy Centre think-tank.


In a note of criticism of May’s strategy, she said there appeared to be a lack of “ownership” in Britain of the agreement struck between the two sides in November, and that there was insufficient transparency in the prime minister’s moves.


“There will be no more negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement,” said Weyand, a German senior civil servant at the European Commission, reiterating the EU stance. — Reuters



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