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Your support makes all the difference.Ireland’s prime minister has warned Theresa May that “time is running out” to reach a Brexit agreement and stop the UK crashing out of the EU.
Speaking in the Dáil ahead of a European Council summit in Brussels Leo Varakdar said the lack of progress had been “very disappointing” and that Ms May was risking losing her transition period.
The Prime Minister will on Thursday night explain to leaders over dinner why the UK has not presented a full plan to solve the Irish border question and what she is going to do about it.
Brexit is low on the agenda at the two-day Brussels summit with trade, migration, and eurozone reform set to dominate proceedings. On Friday morning leaders will issue a joint statement on Brexit progress, expected to be criticial of the lack of progress, particularly on the Ireland issue.
Mr Varadkar told Irish MPs: “Time is running out for the Withdrawal Agreement to be concluded satisfactorily by the October European Council.”
He added: “The lack of progress in the negotiations on the withdrawal agreement has been very disappointing.
“We still need to see detailed proposals from the UK on how it intends to deliver on the clear commitments it made in December and March.”
“Time is running out for the Withdrawal Agreement to be concluded satisfactorily by the October European Council
Despite some progress on the withdrawal agreement the key issue of how to prevent a hard border in Ireland after Brexit, in line with the Good Friday Agreement, is no closer to being resolved than it was in March.
Ms May is still locked in negotiations with her own Cabinet about the so-called “backstop” arrangement, and talks on the future relationship between the UK and EU have yet to progress past the very early stages. The EU says a deal needs to be done before October in order to give time for any agreement to be ratified.
The UK has flat-out rejected EU plans to give a special status to Northern Ireland that would effectively keep it in the customs union and single market, and says any deal must apply to the whole UK and be time-limited. The EU says UK plans are not enough to actually prevent a hard border from happening.
At the summit EU leaders are expected to grapple with the political migration crisis that is destabilising Germany’s coalition government and which helped bring far-right parties to power in Italy and Austria.
They will also discuss Donald Trump’s new protectionist America First trade doctrine, after Council president Donald Tusk warned they had to prepare for “worse case scenarios” with the US president in charge. Senior EU officials say they believe Mr Trump is “dangerous” for Europe.
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