Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, has written to EU leaders to ask them to back his proposal to offer the U.K. a one-year extension to the Brexit process.
Keen to avoid a potential series of shorter delays, Tusk said his so-called flextension model offered the U.K. its best chance of agreeing a way to exit the bloc with a deal in place.
Tusk’s letter was penned on the eve of a two-day meeting of EU leaders, beginning on Wednesday, at which they will decide whether or not to give U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May yet more time to find a way of breaking the Brexit deadlock in the British parliament.
If they decide not to, the U.K. will leave without a deal at 23:00 BST on Friday — a scenario that both sides have said they are keen to avoid given the immediate economic havoc it could wreak.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who has previously suggested a one-year delay was too long, is reported to have softened his stance. Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel met with May on Tuesday ahead of the crunch summit of EU leaders.
May, mandated by parliament, had already requested an extension to June 30 to give her more time to find a cross-party consensus for moving forward with Brexit. Her original plan for leaving the bloc, agreed with the EU last year, has been overwhelmingly rejected by British MPs three times largely because of concerns over the Irish backstop — the plan to avoid a harder border in Ireland.
Members of both May’s ruling Conservative Party and the opposition Labour Party have been locked in talks for the last week but there is little sign of an end to the impasse.
Want news about Europe delivered to your inbox? Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Europe Daily newsletter. Sign up here.
