Theresa
May gets hard welcome from EU ‘nest of doves’
Frosty
reception for UK prime minister at her first summit.
By TOM MCTAGUE
10/20/16, 6:17 PM CET Updated 10/21/16, 7:52 AM CET
Theresa May was
greeted with a wall of silence from European leaders after officially
confirming the U.K. would trigger Article 50 by the end of March next
year.
The U.K. prime
minister gave a short five-minute address on Brexit at the end of a
five-hour working dinner early Friday morning. She said Britain’s
divorce from the EU should remain amicable, insisting the U.K. wanted
a “strong EU” as a partner.
After the meeting,
French President François Hollande said May had promised to “engage
in the discussion in the most constructive way.” He remarked that
“her tone was different than the one previously used.”
Despite May’s
conciliatory tone, EU leaders flatly refused to engage, insisting
there would be no negotiations before formal notice was given for
Britain’s withdrawal.
The frosty reception
came after European leaders had earlier publicly criticized the prime
minister over her hardline remarks at the Conservative Party
conference earlier this month, despite a promise from Tusk that she’d
be “absolutely safe” at the meeting.
May and other
leaders arrived in Brussels for a two-day summit with a difficult
agenda that includes Russia, migration and trade policy — and is
not supposed to linger on the thorny subject of Brexit. Tusk said
that despite media reports that May would be entering a “lion’s
den,” the meeting would be “more like a nest of doves.”
After the first day
of talks broke up at just after 1 am Friday morning, Tusk told
reporters that May has been “welcomed” to the summit and
confirmed she had given warning that the U.K. would invoke article 50
before the end of March next year.
But he said: “There
will be no negotiations until article 50 is triggered by the U.K. so
we did not discuss Brexit tonight.”
Tusk also fired a
warning shot at the U.K., insisting free trade and free movement
could not be separated within the single market. “The basic
principles and rules, namely the single market and the indivisibility
of the four freedoms, will remain our firm stance,” he said.
The remarks echoed
earlier comments by European Parliament President Martin Schulz who
insisted there could be no access to the single market without free
movement of workers — one of the “fundamental freedoms” of the
EU.
“I refuse to
imagine a Europe where lorries and hedge funds are free to cross
borders but citizens are not,” Schulz said in his opening remarks
to EU leaders, according to a text of his speech.
Schulz also couldn’t
resist a dig at the U.K.’s decision to leave the EU in the first
place. “The best possible deal with the EU is membership of the
EU,” he said. “Any other arrangement necessarily entails
trade-offs.”
Hollande also took
aim at the British PM. Arriving at the summit, he warned the upcoming
exit negotiations would be “hard” because of the tone May had
struck since taking over from David Cameron.
“Let me say very
firmly,” Hollande said, “if Theresa May wants a hard Brexit, then
the negotiation will be hard.”
The attacks lift the
lid on the angry reaction in European capitals to May’s hardline
opening stance — and in particular her Conservative Party
conference speech earlier this month in which she signaled Britain’s
exit from the single market.
The reaction in
Brussels scuppers May’s bid to avoid confrontation by playing up
the benefits of a compromise that would benefit both sides in the
Brexit process.
The U.K.
Conservative Party leader in the European Parliament, Syed Kamall,
said the attacks were just “posturing.”
“EU leaders are
blowing hard now but they’ll soon see sense when the detailed
negotiations begin,” he told British reporters.
Schulz was the most
outspoken in his criticism of May, insisting there could be no
negotiations until the prime minister triggered Article 50 to begin
the formal process of leaving the EU.
“Announcing that
you’re going to trigger Article 50 is not the same as triggering
Article 50,” he said. “We should not run into a trap. No
negotiation without notification. I hope Theresa May will give us the
message that soon they will activate Article 50.”
Asked if there would
be any informal talks, Schulz asked: “About what should you talk
informally if you do not know what and when?”
Tensions were also
evident during a debate on migration, when according to a senior
diplomat May interrupted the proceedings to tell EU leaders they
should not continue to hold summits without the U.K. present.
Since Britain’s
vote to leave the EU in late June, the bloc’s other 27 leaders have
held two informal meetings to discuss issues related to Brexit, and
plan to meet again without the UK in Malta early next year.
“We should meet as
28,” May said, according to the diplomat. “Otherwise it will be
hard for me to accept things you agreed among yourselves. I expect to
be fully involved in all discussions related to the EU 28.”
Tusk, according to
the source, responded that there were reasons for the 27 to meet
without Britain and that she needed to accept that.
Tara Palmeri, Maïa
de La Baume and Giulia Paravicini contributed to this article.
Authors:
Tom McTague
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