Frustrated European ministers on Monday insisted there was still time to reach a Brexit deal despite the latest failed round of divorce talks, but the EU warned it was stepping up preparations for failure.
Meeting in Luxembourg, foreign ministers from the bloc’s 28 members admitted that no agreement would be struck this week at an EU leaders’ summit that had earlier been billed as the “moment of truth”.
EU Brexit point man Michel Barnier met his British counterpart Dominic Raab in Brussels on Sunday, but they failed to agree to a draft Brexit divorce arrangement, as EU leaders prepare to arrive on Wednesday for the summit.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, whose country would suffer the biggest economic impact after the United Kingdom from a “no-deal” Brexit, said the latest stumble was “frustrating and disappointing”.
And in Brussels, European Commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said the bloc’s own “no deal” preparations were being stepped up.
“While we are working hard for a deal, our preparedness and contingency work is continuing and intensifying,” spokesman Margaritis Schinas said.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is facing a political high-wire act in trying to reach a deal that is acceptable to both the EU and lawmakers at home, where her minority government relies on the support of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
Highlighting the challenges she faces, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson on Monday warned it was “probably inevitable” Britain would leave the EU with no deal.
“Given the way in which the EU has behaved and the corner they’ve put Theresa May into, there’s no deal which I can see at present which will command a majority in the House of Commons,” he told the Belfast Newsletter.
