United Kingdom and Gibraltar European Union membership referendum
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For the third time, Theresa May had the London House of Commons vote on her Brexit deal with the EU, but failed for the third time. So it is clear: on April 12, Britain will leave the EU without a contract. This is how the heads of state and government of the other 27 EU member states decided last week. Unless the British get some sort of agreement next week, which hardly anyone believes - or the British Prime Minister quickly asks for another respite in Brussels.
Whether she gets it, the heads of state and government of the other 27 EU states will decide on a special summit. It will take place on 10 April, as EU Council President Donald Tusk announced immediately after the vote in the House of Commons. At a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday, it became apparent that the EU could offer the British a postponement until the end of 2020. This would have the advantage that the London policy would have time to overcome the chaos and to rearrange itself.
It would also have a huge disadvantage from the EU's point of view. The British would have to attend the European elections at the end of May. And in extreme cases, that could even lead to the EU-27 refusing renewed renewals and plunging the British into no-deal brexit.
Hard-hitting power issues could prevent extra time
A problem from the perspective of leading EU politicians: The voters in the rest of the EU would hardly be able to communicate why the British were about to decide on the EU's great future issues shortly before leaving the EU - for example, how the Union will spend its money from 2021 to 2027. This could hardly be legally binding, after all, Britain would continue to be a member with all its rights and obligations. At most, a "gentleman's agreement" is considered to include London in decisions about important future issues.
An even bigger problem, however, are hard-hitting power issues. For if the British took part in the election, they would again send 73 MPs to the EU Parliament - including perhaps more EU haters like Nigel Farage, and certainly not a single representative of the European People's Party. For the British Tories left the Christian-democratic party family years ago.
The nine Christian Democrats among the 28 heads of state and government, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, would then have to worry about whether the EU Commission President still comes from their ranks in the future. According to current forecasts, EPP's leading candidate Manfred Weber (CSU) will now need every vote in parliament to be elected EU Commission President. If things go badly for him, a British election could cost him victory and career.
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Even the liberal Alde party family should not be interested in such a scenario - because it currently has only one British MEP in the EU Parliament. But it puts eight of the 28 EU leaders, only one less than the EPP.
"Substantial resistance" to extension under EU states
Among the member countries, there was "considerable resistance" to a renewed electoral participation of the British, warns a participant of the ambassador meeting on Thursday. What makes the situation particularly dangerous: The no-deal Brexit would come even if only one of the heads of state and government votes against the extension. The EU-27 are in a similar situation to the British Parliament: they have to actively decide on something, in this case probably for the Brexit-delay - and that also unanimously.
Whether the EU would actually go so far as to refuse extra time and push the British across the no-deal cliff is still considered unlikely. But it is not excluded. The EU summits in December and last week have already shown that, in case of doubt, heads of state and government are taking an even stiffer position vis-à-vis London than officials in Brussels and the capitals, says an experienced diplomat. "The momentum at the special summit would be difficult to assess." The EU Commission stated in a statement distributed after the lower house vote that a "No Deal" on April 12 was "a probable scenario".
At the working level, there is already a new dynamic: at the ambassador meeting, "resignation" was the first to take place, which concerns a regulated Brexit. "We are already in no-deal mode," said the diplomat. This is shown, for example, by the fact that the Irish Government is increasingly being criticized for refusing to prepare for new customs controls on the border with Northern Ireland. The representatives of other EU states, it is said, have made it clear to their Irish counterpart that endangering the EU's single market is unacceptable.
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EU is considering conditions for talks about the future
A no-deal Brexit would create many more problems - and solve none. Because it turns out that in this case, the EU would only be prepared under certain conditions to talk to London about future relations:
- The British would have to pay the outstanding contributions to the EU ("Withdrawal Account"),
- They would have to secure the rights of EU citizens,
- They would have to avoid a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The announcement is not without a certain irony: It would be exactly the problems back on the table, because of which the withdrawal contract in the British House of Commons has failed, at least in part. From the point of view of the EU, that is only logical. "These things are fundamentally important to us," says a Brussels diplomat. "They would not just disappear, just because Britain is leaving without agreement."