Yahoo Finance Theresa May ‘confident’ of getting Brexit deal despite EU concerns over Cabinet split
Theresa May has played down fears Britain could crash out of the EU without a Brexit deal despite growing concern on the continent about the lack of progress being made in talks.
Arriving at the European Council summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister said she was “confident” about increasing the pace of talks and doing a deal before the October deadline.
May said the government’s new plan for the UK’s future partnership with the EU, which will be published within weeks, was key to making progress.
“I’m confident we can sit down and discuss that at pace and ensure that we can achieve what we want, which is that continuing partnership with the European union on economic and security matters,” she said.
May will press home the importance of continued security cooperation in a speech to the leaders of the other 27 EU member states over dinner.
The timing means she won’t be able to watch England’s World Cup match against Belgium, although she was presented with a Belgian shirt by the country’s prime minister Charles Michel.
Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar said he was looking forward to seeing the UK’s proposals which will be presented in a white paper.
But he said: “I think it would have been helpful if they’d had that white paper two years ago.
“You would have thought that before people voted to leave the EU they would have an idea of what the new relationship might look like.”
He also warned May that she couldn’t expect to achieve a relationship of “absolute equals” in future.
“We’re 27 member states, the UK is one country,” he said. “We’re 500 million people, the UK is 60 million. That basic fact needs to be realised and understood.”
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker admitted he was worried about the lack of progress made in Brexit talks so far.
Yahoo revealed how just 5% of the draft Withdrawal Agreement was completed between this European Council summit and the last in March.
In a rare intervention in domestic British politics, Juncker said the EU could not go on dealing with a “split Cabinet” in the UK.
“They have to say what they want and we will respond to it,” he said.
Juncker also stressed that he did not want to see the Irish border backstop left until the last moment.
How to avoid a hard border in Ireland under any circumstances is the most difficult of the outstanding issues.
EU leaders are expected to “express concern” that “no substantial progress” has yet been made on the issue when they discuss Brexit negotiations tomorrow morning.
