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THE EUROPEAN UNION is prepared to give Britain further Brexit guarantees to help a divorce deal through the British parliament, the bloc’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said in an interview published today
“We can find guarantees to confirm, clarify, guarantee the goodwill and good faith of the Europeans with commitments which would have real legal force,” Barnier said in comments published in several European newspapers including Die Welt in Germany and Les Echos in France.
Barnier also suggested European leaders would be amenable to a short “technical” delay in Britain’s departure from the EU, scheduled for 29 March, to give the British parliament time to formally ratify a final divorce deal.
The British parliament rejected the original Brexit deal hammered out by Prime Minister Theresa May and EU leaders.
With the Irish backstop being the biggest obstacle to agreement in parliament, Barnier said there was “misunderstanding” over the proposed backstop deal.
He said it would not
“Limiting it in time or introducing a unilateral exit clause would call into question its credibility,” the EU’s top Brexit negotiator insisted.
The backstop “will end either when we have a global agreement on the future relationship, or a specific agreement with Ireland,” he said, assuring it “was never the wish” to bind Britain to European trade rules indefinitely.
Meetings next week
Barnier said he would meet Britain’s Brexit minister Stephen Barclay and Attorney General Geoffrey Cox next week to discuss options.
A Brussels source said those talks could take place in the Belgian capital on Tuesday.
“There is a way that the British (parliament) could vote, between now and March 12th, with these guarantees of our good faith, It will be up to them to fulfil their responsibilities,” Barnier said.
In 2017, the UL invoked Article 50 of EU law, triggering a two-year countdown to Brexit that ends at 11pm on 29 March
It is on course to leave without an agreement after British MPs in January overwhelmingly rejected the divorce deal May struck with the EU late last year.
The embattled leader is now seeking changes to the pact which she hopes will be enough to get it through parliament by 12 March 12.
In a revised strategy unveiled this week, May vowed that if her deal is rejected, lawmakers will vote in the following days on whether to leave without a deal or delay Brexit.
But European leaders have warned any postponement would come with conditions.
Barnier suggested a short delay could be acceptable.
“The European institutions will do whatever is necessary on their side but the British have told us in the past that they will need two months to ratify” the deal.
“It would then require a simple technical extension.”
While Britain is yet to request a delay, “I don’t think there would be any objections in principle” from the other 27 EU nations, Barnier said.
However, any delay “must serve to solve a problem, not merely to postpone it and remain at an impasse.”
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Re 50 Shades
I’ve said it before I’ll say it again If I wanted to watch a poorly written movie with a cast of unknowns and badly acted, unrealistic sex scenes I just watch actual porn.
Do girl.
Haha, hypothetically speaking that is.
Down to with this sort of thing!
There’s people coming from gdansk to see the film!
Ah in fairness the people from Gdansk are probably here to collect the social welfare and going to the cinema to kill time before the flight home.
Looking forward to film version of Fionnuala O’Carroll-Kelly’s ‘Fifty Greys in Shades’
“Why go to the cinema to watch other people have sex? It’s perverted. If I go to the cinema I want to be entertained”
In the olden days couples were known to ‘do it’ on the floor in the back row of the balcony seats in the Leinster Cinema in Dolphins Barn, giving much entertainment to us young lads.
I’m looking forward to it actually, hope its in 3 D too
The sequel is already in production – 50 Shaves a Day starring Susan Boyle!
In the words of Family Guy’s Glen Quagmire: “Giggidy gigidy al…rite…”
”Why go to the cinema to watch other people have sex? It’s perverted. If I go to the cinema I want to be entertained.”
Guess what Mary? A hell of a lot of people find sex entertaining. And (you may need to sit down for this one) a very large percentage of the 100 million copies of FSOG sold were to women, as is the target audience for the film. That’s a lot of lady perverts. But the good news for you is Shaun The Sheep is on. The clean version.
I’ve s feeling film is going to gratuitous just for the sake of it.
More ebbing away of Ireland’s mortality
Gary seriously get a hobby for yourself. Sick of your comments on nearly every article.
Ireland’s morality has been eroded by the very people who were preaching it. An organisation that was rife with child molesters, paedophiles, people who would abuse physically, mentally and sexually and then get up on an altar and tell people how they live their lives. Sorry now but a film/book about sex is not going to destroy this country.
I think Gary Gary is from one of them groups that dress women up from head to toe to cover them up for morality reasons. Yet when they get home they 50 shades the women where people can’t see them or judge them. It’s the 21st century Gary Gary come into the light my friend.
Mortality btw is about death. Morality is about morals fyi..
Gary
I’m surprised you’re posting comments here, I though you’d be at Mass!
Pat the only problem with what you said there is that people i.e the clergy did those things. It never said in the bible to abuse children and I do think there needs to be a separation there. But yes a lot of bad people preached one thing and did another and as a result hurt the church, country and people. Not all but some.
We’ll said Pat
Sex is not evil, immoral or a negative, we are the most sexualised and social beings on this earth. The head of the human penis is shaped like so to plunge other semen out of the vagina, we think about and have Sex More than any other animal, our biology shows that sex was used to strengthen bonds, people that love an old book have made us feel guilty of these natural “immoral” urges, wish they’d get a grip and stop trying to legislate nonsense on other people, feel free to flagellate yourselves though.
Save yourself a tenner: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2322441/plotsummary?ref_=tt_stry_pl
Would you watch your sister in a porn movie skippy?
“Austerity in Ireland ended more than 12 months ago.” Good one, isn’t not the whole of the eurozone in austerity because it was aimed at the currency rather than countries and this led to countries being in worst austerity than the Euro. How can the Eurozone have a currency that is in austerity and the countries using it are not, I find that confusing?
Time to do away with the whip system in government ,I say!
have your say