Emmanuel Macron has told EU leaders to block Theresa May’s attempts to pick and choose elements of EU membership.
The French President said of the UK prime minister’s presentation to the leaders in Salzburg: “My first wish is to stay united and to have a common approach, the 27. It is essential. The second thing is that we remain coherent. The solution must be found. The third thing is that we need to have a real retirement agreement by November.”
May used the presentation to highlight the urgency of the negotiations in the run-up to Brexit.
“We all recognise that time is short but extending or delaying these negotiations is not an option,” she said.
At the same dinner, May also ruled out a second Brexit referendum for the UK. In response, the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We hope that finally we will reach a deal but I am very unhappy that the UK is leaving, so it would be better maybe to make another referendum and maybe the people in the meantime could change their view.”
“Europe has a lot of problems. We have problems with Mr Trump about tariffs, sanctions with Russia, Brexit, migration and so on. For Europe, it’s quite a difficult time. We were shocked when the referendum was announced that there were so many people practically unhappy. Even the chief of commission didn’t understand.”
The UK government is hoping that May’s presentation to the EU leaders will allow some room for negotiation and flexibility before Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.
The former Brexit secretary, David Davis, will say on Thursday the prime minister’s Chequers plan is unpopular and does not represent the British people.
Davis says the prime minister had promised to “return control over our law, our money and our borders. These promises were in [the Conservative] manifesto too. But the Chequers plan crosses on all of those red lines. The EU is often correctly described as having a democratic deficit. But Chequers is devoid of democracy altogether.”