EU Expresses Horror at Brexit Vote, Refuses to Reopen Deal
The European Union said it was horrified by the massive scale of the U.K. Parliament defeat of the Brexit deal agreed with Prime Minister Theresa May but said there was no option to renegotiate.
Ian Wishart, Bloomberg
Diplomats said they were stunned by the extent of the loss. As they tried on Tuesday night to plot the EU response, they said they think there’s little more they can do to help May and fear that the U.K. tumbling out without agreement in March has now become a real prospect.
Despite only 10 weeks to go until the U.K.’s scheduled departure, officials in Brussels ruled out the prospect of an extraordinary summit of the 27 EU leaders any time soon. They said there’s little to discuss if lawmakers in the U.K. can’t decide what they want.
European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker told the U.K: “Time is almost up.” French President Emmanuel Macron chimed in also to remind May that the EU won’t offer concessions to solve “an internal U.K. politics problem.”
‘I will be very vigilant on that,” Macron told reporters in Normandy, northern France. “ We went as far as we could.”
