07 February 2019•Update: 08 February 2019
By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal
LONDON
The EU will not reopen a deal with the U.K. but it is open to wording to the agreement that will shape ties between and the EU, head of European Commission said Thursday.
Jean-Claude Juncker’s comments came during a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in Brussels as she visited the city to review steps in the Brexit process.
The spirit of the talks was in an atmosphere of working to meet shared challenges of EU and the U.K. to uphold open trade, fighting climate change, terrorism and the rules-based international system, according to a joint statement following the meeting.
May conveyed the reason for the vote last week in the House of Commons to seek a legal change to the agreement and she raised “various options for dealing with these concerns,” it said.
She also met EU Commission President Donald Tusk who questioned yesterday what kind of a place there would be in hell for those who promoted Brexit without a plan, causing dismay in the U.K.
“The language”, May said, “was not helpful and caused widespread dismay in the U.K.,” after facing Tusk.
Tusk later twitted: “Still no breakthrough in sight. Talks will continue.”
But Juncker said the deal “represents a carefully balanced compromise between the EU and the U.K.,” expressing, on the other hand, “his openness to wording to the Political Declaration agreed by the EU27 and the U.K. in order to be more ambitious in terms of content and speed when it comes to the future relationship between the EU and the U.K.”
The discussions were “robust but constructive,” and the pair agreed further discussion are necessary to see if a way can be found “that would gain the broadest possible support in the U.K. parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European Council.”
"May and Juncker will meet again before the end of the month," the statement added.
May said the talks had been “robust but constructive”.
“What I have set out is our clear position that we must secure legally binding changes to the withdrawal agreement to deal with the concerns that parliament has over the backstop, and that changes to the backstop, together with the other work we are doing on workers’ rights and other issues, will deliver a stable majority in parliament,” she said.
May added: “That is what I will continue to push for. It’s not going to be easy but crucially President Juncker and I have agreed that talks will now start to find a way through this, to find a way to get this over the line and to deliver on the concerns that parliament has, so we get a majority in parliament.”
May has 50 days before date of March 29 to secure a deal which will need ratification from all EU members and the House of Commons.
Fifty-two percent of British voters opted for an exit of the EU in 2016 after more than 40 years of membership to the bloc.
