Too late for new Brexit deal, Macron tells Johnson

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron told Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Thursday that there was not enough time to wholly rewrite Britain’s Brexit divorce deal before an Oct. 31 deadline.

Johnson met Macron at the Elysee Palace a day after talks in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who challenged Britain to come up with acceptable alternatives to the agreed safety net provision for the UK-Irish land border.

More than three years after the United Kingdom voted to quit the European Union, it is still unclear on what terms - or indeed whether - the bloc’s second largest economy will leave the club it joined in 1973.

Talks over lunch were constructive, a French official said. Macron left the door open to Britain seeking a solution to the Irish “backstop”, but said any alternative must respect both the integrity of the EU single market and stability on the divided island of Ireland.

“I want to be very clear,” he said. “In the month ahead, we will not find a new withdrawal agreement that deviates far from the original.” On his first trip abroad since entering 10 Downing Street a month ago, Johnson has warned Merkel and Macron that they face a potentially disorderly no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31 unless the EU does a new deal.

Speaking in The Hague, Merkel said she had not meant to set a deadline when saying on Wednesday that a solution to the Irish border issue could be found within 30 days, but to “highlight the urgency”.

Merkel gives Britain until October 31 for Brexit solution: German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that Britain could have until the day of its scheduled EU departure to avoid a chaotic no-deal Brexit, clarifying that she had not set London a 30-day deadline.

Merkel had appeared to lay down the 30-day rule to solve the vexed issue of the Irish border “backstop” when she met British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Berlin on Wednesday.

“I said that what you want to do in three or two years, you can do in 30 days — or rather, you would have to say: you can do it by October 31,” Merkel said at a press conference in The Hague with Dutch premier Mark Rutte.

“So it´s not about 30 days, but they were symbolic for the fact that you can do it in a short period of time. Merkel said she was giving the new date “because Great Britain said they would like to leave the European Union on 31 October.”

“And until then we have to work on it — work on it if the will exists on both sides. The German leader said the aim was to find a regime that both respects the two-decade old peace agreement in the British province of Northern Ireland “and at the same time we can ensure the integrity of the (EU´s) internal market.”

In Berlin on Wednesday night, Merkel had appeared to give London its biggest glimmer of hope in weeks when she said that “we have said we would probably find it in the next two years, but maybe we can do it in the next 30 days, why not?”

At stake is the so-called “backstop”, which is a provision guaranteeing that border checks will not return between EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain.

Johnson considers the backstop to be “anti-democratic” and an affront to British sovereignty because it will require London to keep its regulations aligned with the EU during a transition exit period.

The pound sterling rose one percent Thursday on Brexit optimism, largely on the back of Merkel´s comments and French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron backing the idea of further Brexit talks. Macron however ruled out major compromises as he met Johnson in Paris.