Down-to-the-wire Brexit talks remain stalled on the issues of the Northern Irish border and protections for the rights of EU citizens, according to Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament.
Weber’s pessimistic assessement on Twitter was echoed by the Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney and the country’s European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee Monday morning. Coveney told RTE that “we’re not quite yet where we need to be,” while McEntee told the BBC’s Today Program, “we are not there yet.”
The downbeat responses suggest that negotiations will continue right up to a crucial lunch meeting between Prime Minister Theresa May and the European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.
May will fly in this morning aboard an RAF plane with her Brexit Secretary David Davis for the crunch lunch — a key moment in her bid to persuade the EU27 that sufficient progress has been made in the Brexit talks to move them forward to the discussion about the U.K.’s future relationship with the bloc.
Weber, who is a close ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, wrote on Twitter that the EU will not change its “red lines” as “the lives of millions of families are at stake.” Although the two sides are close on the issue of citizens’ rights the future role of the European Court of Justice in the U.K. remains a sticking point. At the weekend, a group of leading Brexiteers wrote to May to urge her to stick to her red line on removing the court’s jurisdiction over the U.K.
“In #Brexit negotiations, money is one of the problems, but it is not the biggest one,” the MEP said on Twitter, adding the EU was “much more concerned about the fact that negotiations are stalled on the protection of EU citizen’s rights & on the Irish case.”
In #Brexit negotiations, money is one of the problems, but it is not the biggest one. We are much more concerned about the fact that negotiations are stalled on the protection of EU citizens’ rights & on the Irish case. 1/2
— Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) December 4, 2017
We will not change our red lines. The lives of millions of families are at stake. If no clear commitment is made, the @EPPGroup will not be ready to assess the progress made as sufficient to enter a 2nd phase of negotiations. #Brexit 2/2
— Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) December 4, 2017
Asked if the talks were close to a breakthrough, McEntee said, “No. I don’t believe we are.”
“We are certainly not looking to veto anything. Ireland wants to move on to phase two in the same way the UK and rest of the 26 EU member states do. However, it is absolutely impossible for us to allow negotiations to move to phase two when we don’t an absolute concrete commitment from the UK government that we will not have a hard border on the island of Ireland.”
She said the Irish cabinet was meeting at 9 a.m. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that we will have an absolute final text that we will be able to approve however for us there are a number of key issues that we have wanted to see progress on that I know progress has been made over the weekend,” she told the BBC.
Former Tory cabinet minister Owen Paterson told the same program, “It would be disastrous for the Belfast agreement to put a line down the Irish sea and to have Northern Ireland hived off with separate standards as some people in Dublin are asking for.”
“There can be no special agreements for Northern Ireland separated from the rest of the UK,” he said.
Last month, Weber told May in London that there needed to be a noticeable negative impact on her country on the day it leaves the bloc. Weber also said the European Parliament would not let the United Kingdom have a smooth “cut-and-paste” transition into a post-Brexit era.