• Boris Johnson puts his feet on the table during an interview with Emmanuel Macron (VIDEO)
  • Brexit, Johnson in Paris: "I want to find an agreement". Macron: "The future of the United Kingdom is in the EU"

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August 22, 2019 Less optimistic and conciliatory tones, but the same message: the French president, Emmanuel Macron, follows (reluctantly) the line of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and grants London time to propose solutions to the impasse, created on the exit agreement of the United Kingdom from the EU, without hiding, however, his skepticism about the possibility of reaching a "very different" agreement from the current one, from now until October 31, deadline set for the implementation of Brexit. For this reason, the openings yesterday in Berlin and today in Paris to Boris Johnson, on his first visit to the EU since he became prime minister, sound more like a coordinated strategy to avoid what Theresa May's successor has always tried to do: download the responsibility of a Brexit no deal on Brussels, in his eyes of not wanting to negotiate a new agreement with London.

At the press conference before the talks at the Elysée Palace, Macron (like Merkel) said he was ready to listen to London's proposals to replace the disputed backstop, on which the May agreement ran aground in Parliament. This is the clause that foresees the permanence of Northern Ireland in the single market, with Great Britain inserted in the customs union, until solutions are found to avoid the physical border between the 'two Irelands'.

The Elysium tenant said he was "confident" that a solution could be found "in 30 days", as suggested by the chancellor, but he also underlined that it must be "within the framework of what has already been negotiated" and in respect of "stability" of Ireland and the single market ". For this reason, Paris has warned that it will not lead to a very different agreement from the current one, sending a clear warning to Johnson, who said he was "encouraged" by the talks with Merkel but now seems to have abandoned the idea of ​​a complete revision of the May plan. Demonstrating the difficulties Johnson faces in defining alternatives (he said there are "readily available technical solutions"), Macron defined the current "indispensable" backstop.

The London premier then reiterated that he "wanted an agreement", assured that "for no reason will impose Irish border controls", but also repeated his leitmotiv: "We must leave the EU on October 31, with or without agreement" . The ball is now in the hands of Downing Street, but the path is all uphill.

The next step will be the meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk, scheduled on the sidelines of the G7 in Biarritz, where Johnson could already bring concrete proposals. The existence of a trading margin on Brexit raised market optimism and strengthened the pound that hit a peak of 1.2265 against the dollar and 90.41 pence against the euro, levels that had not been seen for three weeks .