Theresa May - wielding her handbag - was seen locked in a tense standoff with the EU commission chief as the second day of the summit gets under way in Brussels. Although the sound was switched off, TV cameras caught the pair exchanging what looked to be heated words for at least a minute. Mrs May took the Eurocrat to task for his comments, saying: 'You called me nebulous. Yes you did!' Mr Juncker, who had one hand on Mrs May's arm, looked to be trying to soothe her anger by denying making the jibe. Speaking at a press conference at the close of the summit this afternoon, the premier admitted they had a 'robust' exchange. She said she had been 'crystal clear' with other leaders about what she needed to get to win support for the Brexit deal. The clash, which evoked memories of Margaret Thatcher's 'handbagging' of EU leaders to secure Britain's rebate in 1984, came after Mrs May's latest appeal for 'legally binding' assurances over the Irish border backstop to save her Brexit deal fell flat.
May and Juncker clash over ‘nebulous’ comment
The UK prime minister said EU leaders were willing to
continue talking about further ‘assurances’ for MPs.
By CHARLIE
COOPER, LILI BAYER AND JAMES RANDERSON 12/14/18,
4:41 PM CET Updated 12/14/18, 9:04 PM CET
Theresa May clashed with Jean-Claude Juncker in a
"robust" exchange in the European Council chamber, as tempers frayed
at a summit that did little to boost the British prime minister's hopes of
selling her Brexit deal to MPs at home.
May acknowledged that she and Juncker had shared a difficult
conversation, which was caught on camera. It followed a press conference late
on Thursday evening at which the European Commission president appeared to
describe her demands for more assurances on the Irish backstop as
"nebulous and imprecise."
May, speaking before departing the summit for London, said
it had been a "robust discussion." In his own press conference to
round off the meeting, Juncker admitted that, "we were not dancing ... she
thought that I did criticize her."
He said the comment, which was delivered in French (he said
he preferred the translation "foggy" for the word
"nébuleux") was in any case not aimed at her but at the general
debate on Brexit in the U.K.
When Juncker was asked pointedly to explain the conversation,
Council President Donald Tusk, standing beside him at the news conference,
started singing "da, da, da" — signifying the awkwardness of the
moment.
But Juncker had a ready explanation. "I did not refer
to her but to the overall state of the debate in Britain," he said.
"As I told you earlier I was following the debate in the House [of
Commons] and I can't see where the British parliament is heading at. And that's
why I was saying that this is nebulous — foggy in English — so I was not
addressing her. And in the course of the morning after having checked what I
said yesterday night, she was kissing me."
As leaders departed Brussels, ending what was clearly a
difficult summit for the U.K. prime minister. EU officials said that the
problem was a matter of fundamental disagreement on policy. It was not May's request for "legal
assurances" that her 27 colleagues found problematic — theoretically, the
Council could easily offer guarantees and has done so in other similarly
controversial situations. Rather, it was the nature of the assurances she
sought. Granting May's request — as she stated it — would have fundamentally
undermined the "backstop" provision on the Ireland-Northern Ireland
border that the EU views as crucial to the Withdrawal Treaty.
In addition to holding their line on the need to prevent the
recreation of a hard border on the island of Ireland, officials said that May
provided the EU27 leaders with no convincing assurance that anything they did
would change the math in the House of Commons, where 117 of her own party
opposed her in a confidence vote this week.
By denying May's request for genuinely new, legal
commitments from the EU that the backstop is an insurance policy that is
unlikely to be needed and would not be permanent if it ever was, the 27 hope to
force May and her parliament into clarifying where there might be a majority of
votes for any given path forward on Brexit. Right now, they see such a majority
only for preventing a no-deal scenario. The EU27 also don't want May pushing
too close to the edge of the so-called "cliff" at which point the
U.K. could theoretically crash out of the EU without a deal.
At their closing news conference, EU leaders stressed that
they had no personal animus toward May, and in fact felt sympathy toward her.
"We have treated Prime Minister May with the greatest
respect — all of us," Tusk said. "We really appreciate the effort by
the prime minister to ratify our common agreement. My impression is that in
fact we have treated Prime Minister May with a much greater empathy and respect
than some British MPs, for sure."
Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country holds the
EU's rotating presidency, said: "The problem is just that we have two
different positions but that is all. Theresa May, I think, was a tough
negotiator in the meeting and also made her point very clear, and then on the
other side, the EU27 are united, which is good, and were also able to make our
point clear."
The EU is adamant that the backstop — a customs union
between the U.K. and EU plus other measures — is needed to avoid a hard border
on the island of Ireland and protect the Good Friday peace agreement.
May, at her own news conference, sought to offer a positive
spin, hailing Thursday's EU27 summit conclusions as a step forward.
May admitted the situation was "never going to be
easy" but insisted she had been "crystal clear" with the EU
about her demands.
"As formal conclusions these commitments have legal
status and therefore should be welcomed,” she said, insisting that EU leaders
had promised further discussions to follow in the coming days and weeks.
But while the EU is prepared to talk, they have been
categorical that they will not renegotiate the backstop or any other part of
the legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement. "I have no mandate to organize
any further negotiations," Tusk said. "But of course we will stay
here in Brussels and I am always at the prime minister's disposal. It is my job
and my pleasure."
The commitments made by EU leaders go no further than the
EU's already stated position on the backstop in any case. Indeed, a draft text
seen by POLITICO Wednesday, which said the EU stood ready to provide further
assurances, was watered down.
And to make matters worse, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar
cast doubt on May's assertion that the Council conclusions have legal status.
He said it was "a question for the legal service," but added that they
were "serious stuff."
But May was undeterred, saying that more work could be done
to reassure MPs before she brings her deal back to the House of Commons before
January 21.
“There is work still to do and we will be holding talks in
the coming days about how to obtain the further assurances that the U.K.
parliament needs in order to be able to approve the deal,” she said.
In a week in which she pulled a vote on her Brexit deal for
fear of overwhelming defeat, then saw off a confidence vote from within her own
party, May admitted the situation was "never going to be easy" but
insisted she had been "crystal clear" with the EU about her demands.
With the clock ticking down to the U.K.'s March 29, 2019
exit date, May said her government would be “talking further about no deal
preparations” in the coming days and weeks. A deal is her preferred option and
she insists the one she has negotiated can get through parliament, where there
is also a majority for blocking a no-deal outcome. But May herself has warned
of an “accidental no-deal" if she cannot sell her plan at home.
France's President Emmanuel Macron talks with European
leaders | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images
Her political rivals at home seized on the summit outcome.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party, called on her to hold the vote next
week to allow parliament to "take back control” of the Brexit process.
“The last 24 hours have confirmed that Theresa May’s Brexit
deal is dead in the water," Corbyn said. “The prime minister has utterly
failed in her attempts to deliver any meaningful changes to her botched
deal."
Juncker said EU leaders, who have faced their own rebellions
at home, could only empathize with May.
"Theresa May is a good friend of ours," he said.
"We were prime ministers. We have sometimes to face motions asking for our resignation....
So we are sympathizing with Mrs. May."
Theresa May's Brexit strategy left brutally exposed by
Brussels failure
Labour declares deal ‘dead in the water’, as hopes of
further talks on backstop disappear
Daniel Boffey , Dan Sabbagh and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels
and Heather Stewart in London
Fri 14 Dec 2018 18.57 GMT Last modified on Sat 15 Dec 2018
00.00 GMT
Theresa May has come home from Brussels empty-handed and
without hope of further negotiations over the Irish backstop, with the failure
to achieve any kind of breakthrough leaving her brutally exposed.
Plans to work over Christmas on a legal guarantee over the
temporary nature of the backstop had run into a brick wall, EU officials said,
despite May’s claim that she would be holding further talks “in the coming
days”.
Brussels sources claimed May was just keeping up a pretence
that the legal guarantee she had promised rebellious Tory MPs during this
week’s leadership challenge was still on the cards.
Without clear evidence that she has made progress, May faces
mounting jeopardy in Westminster, with Labour seriously considering tabling a
vote of no confidence before Christmas, if it believes the prime minister’s DUP
partners might support it.
“The last 24 hours have confirmed that Theresa May’s Brexit
deal is dead in the water. The prime minister has utterly failed in her
attempts to deliver any meaningful changes to her botched deal,” he said.
One shadow cabinet member said the moment at which Labour
would table a no-confidence vote was getting “much, much closer”, but said it
would depend on the stance of the DUP. “We are watching like hawks,” he added.
Some of May’s allies also fear renegade Brexiters from the
right wing of the Tory party could throw their weight behind Labour in the hope
that a no-confidence vote would result in a more Brexit-friendly Conservative
being installed in her place.
In Brussels on Friday, EU leaders insisted they would not do
any more to sweeten the Brexit deal containing the backstop that 100 Tory MPs
want her to ditch.
The European council president, Donald Tusk, spoke of his
respect for May but he was unable to hide the fact that he could not give the
prime minister what she had come for.
“I have no mandate to organise any further negotiations,”
Tusk said. “We have to exclude any kind of reopening our negotiations on the
withdrawal agreement. But of course we will stay here in Brussels, and I am
always at Prime Minister Theresa May’s disposal.”
The prime minister’s Brexit aide Olly Robbins had been
holding secret negotiations since Monday over a two-stage plan to secure the
legal guarantee that Downing Street believed could turn MPs in its favour.
But leaders ripped up a prepared script on Thursday night in
which they would have offered both warm words and the promise of further
assurances in January.
The prime minister had been seeking a “joint interpretative
instrument” that would put a duty on both sides to try to get out of the Irish
backstop within 12 months of it coming into force.
Member states led by France and Ireland lined up to reject
further concessions, warning that May’s deal appeared doomed to failure
whatever was offered. They instead reiterated that they did not want to trigger
the backstop, and that if it did come into force it would be a short-term
arrangement.
Asked three times whether the UK could get further
concessions or legally binding assurances that go beyond the current agreement,
the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, offered May no succour.
“The 27 member states have given assurances. They are
contained in the conclusions of yesterday evening,” she told reporters. “So
that is our position, that is what we have put on the table and now we expect
Great Britain to respond.”
With Downing Street’s plan in tatters, the EU’s leaders
instead turned their fire on the House of Commons for showing the prime
minister a lack of respect, as they sought to convince MPs to back the deal.
“We have treated Prime Minister May with the greatest
respect, all of us, and we really appreciate the efforts by the prime minister
to ratify our common agreement,” Tusk said. “My impression is that in fact we
have treated prime minister May with a much greater empathy and respect than
some MPs, for sure.”
Earlier in the day, May had confronted Juncker, the European
commission president, accusing him of calling her “nebulous” in a press
conference he had held on Thursday evening. A TV camera captured the moment and
lip readers said that the clearly angry prime minister had said: “What did you
call me? You called me nebulous.”
A defensive Juncker tried to deny he used the word, saying:
“No I didn’t, no I didn’t” – although he had used the word when he had
criticised the British negotiating position the night before.
Juncker said the row had been a misunderstanding. He said he
had been describing the “overall state of the debate in Britain”. “I was
following the debate in the house and I can’t see where the British parliament
is heading at and that’s why I was saying it’s nebulous,” he said.
Sour moments dominated the two-day gathering, with a string
of EU leaders complaining about British MPs and the Brexit standoff at
Westminster. Many questioned whether it would be worth making further
concessions to the UK as suggested by May because they would not be accepted.
One person who heard May’s presentation at the summit on
Thursday said she struggled to make a consistent and coherent case, reinforcing
their decision to dig in, and at one point even suggested EU leaders show her
some Christmas goodwill.
On Friday, May said she still hoped to obtain “further
clarification” from Europe. She told reporters she had had “a robust
discussion” with Juncker about his comments at the press conference and said
she had been “crystal clear” about the assurances she was seeking.
The Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said the EU was
prepared to offer the UK “explanations, assurances” over the Brexit deal, but
“there are limitations”. He said there could be nothing “to contradict or render
inoperable the withdrawal agreement”, which contains the backstop.
Critically, he said the EU could commit to its “best
endeavours” in starting a free trade deal by a given date, but it would “not be
possible to say that in law” because trade talks were too complicated to tie
down to a fixed timetable.
Earlier in the day, Arlene Foster, the leader of the
Democratic Unionist party, which is supposed to prop up May’s government, said
May “has promised to get legally binding changes”. She said pushback from the
EU was unsurprising and added: “The key question is whether the PM will stand
up to them or whether she will roll over as has happened previously.”
Steve Baker, a leading figure in the Tory hard-Brexit
European Research Group, questioned whether May was an effective negotiator
after the claims said she had struggled to spell out precisely what she wanted.
“How can Theresa May stay in office if she cannot articulate what she wants for
the UK when it really counts?” Baker said.
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