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| Anti-Brexit campaigner Steve Bray demonstrates outside Downing Street in London, Britain, January 22, 2019. REUTERS/Toby Melville |
European Union Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said on Wednesday that the risk of a no-deal Brexit had increased in last few weeks and it was up to the British to tell the EU how they proposed to break the impasse.
“Certainly the EU is there, the EU is waiting, the EU is ready but first we need to know clearly what are the British intentions and we need some clarifications from London,” Moscovici told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“Of course the door is always open for discussion but it’s not up to us to tell now the British side where it wants to go. The ball clearly is on the British side again. It’s not a problem that can be solved by Brussels, maybe in Brussels later, but it has to be first dealt with in London.”
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier also said earlier today that a temporary safeguard to avoid erecting a physical border between Ireland and Northern Ireland after Brexit would serve no purpose.
In an interview to newspapers Le Monde, Rzeczpospolita and Luxemburger Wort, Barnier said the current backstop proposal over the border was the only option on the table.
“The question of limiting the backstop in time has already been discussed twice by European leaders. This is the only possible option because an insurance is of no use if it is time limited,” Barnier said.
Meanwhile Britain’s opposition Labour Party is highly likely to back an amendment by lawmaker Yvette Cooper that could prevent a no-deal Brexit.
The Cooper amendment makes time for a piece of legislation Cooper has proposed, which gives May until Feb. 26 to get a deal approved by parliament.
If the government fails to get a deal through by that date, parliament would be given a vote on asking the EU for a postponement of the Article 50 deadline to prevent Britain leaving without a deal on March 29. The proposal is for a nine-month extension, to Dec. 31.
“Yvette Cooper has put an amendment down which I think is sensible,” the Labour Party’s finance policy chief, John McDonnell, told the BBC.
When asked whether Labour would back the amendment, he said: “Highly likely.”
Many British and EU businesses fear massive disruption if Brexit goes ahead in just over nine weeks’ time without a framework in place.
