London (AFP)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday wrote to European Council President Donal Tusk to reaffirm his readiness to conclude an EU exit agreement and his opposition to the controversial Irish provision.
This "backstop" provision, or safety net, is contained in the EU withdrawal agreement concluded by the previous Theresa May government. It provides that, for lack of a better solution after a transitional period of two years, and to avoid the creation of a border between the British province of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom the whole remains in the Customs Union.
Boris Johnson, who succeeded Theresa May in July after the British parliament rejected her Brexit deal three times, said she was ready to leave the EU by October 31, with or without an agreement.
In his letter, published Monday evening by his services, he assures however that his "government will work with energy and determination to reach an agreement, it is our highest priority".
But it also reaffirms its refusal of the "backstop", assuring that it is "undemocratic and undermines the sovereignty of the British state". Moreover, keeping the country in the Customs Union would prevent it from pursuing a commercial policy independent of EU rules, he notes.
The EU has repeatedly stated that it is not ready to renegotiate the Brexit agreement with Ms May. But the clock ticks and Boris Johnson goes to Berlin Wednesday and Thursday in Paris to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron to try to convince them to rally to his vision of Brexit, before a summit of G7 in Biarritz (south-west of France) at the end of the week.
Although the UK Parliament rejected the Brexit agreement, it also voted against an exit without agreement. And the prospect of a hard Brexit is not unanimous either in the Conservative Party of Boris Johnson.
The Labor opposition party has already announced that it will try to bring down the government at the return of Parliament on September 3.
© 2019 AFP