Brexit: Emmanuel Macron urges EU leaders to stand firm against Theresa May

France taking hard line in Brexit talks

Emmanuel Macron has urged his EU counterparts to stand firm against Theresa May in Brexit negotiations after the PM urged the bloc to give ground in talks.

Speaking at a summit in Salzburg the French president said EU unity must take precedent over any other considerations.

“May spoke last night. My first wish is to stay united and to have a common approach, the 27. It is essential,” he told reporters on the doorstep of the second day of the meeting.

“The second thing is that we remain coherent. The solution must be found. The third thing is that we need to have a real retirement agreement by November.”

The Prime Minister briefly addressed leaders over dinner on Wednesday evening to make the case for the EU to give ground. The 27 remaining EU leaders are now discussing Ms May’s Chequers proposals over lunch, without her.

France has taken the hardest line of the member states in recent weeks, including its insistence that an outline of the future relationship should be detailed. Other states have suggested it should be allowed to be vague in order to ease the passage to a deal – after the EU rejected key planks of it on customs and the single market.

Elaborating on his position, Mr Macron added: “We have very clear principles regarding the integrity of the single market and regarding precisely the Irish border.

My first wish is to stay united and to have a common approach, the 27. It is essential

Emmanuel Macron

“We need a UK proposal precisely preserving this backstop in the framework of a withdrawal agreement.”

Other leaders took softer line: On his way into the summit Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, said that “compromise from both sides, not from one side” was necessary.

But asked about why the EU was then sticking to his guns, he replied: “We have some colleagues around the table who think the same about Theresa May.”

Irish PM Leo Varadkar told reporters that Ms May was “working hard” on the issue of Northern Ireland and that she appeared to be “very sincere”. But he warned that little progress had been made since March.

He called for new proposals in writing from the UK on the Northern Ireland backstop. Senior UK government officials speaking in the margins of the summit last night said Britain was working on new proposals for a backstop that could see regulatory checks at Irish Sea ports between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

That concession is likely to face hostility from some Brexiteers and the DUP, but in combination with work by the EU to relocate some checks away from ports it might open a path to a deal on what is proving the most difficult issue to resolve.