The European Union is bracing for either a no-deal Brexit or another delay if Bo...
BRUSSELS/LONDON - The European Union is bracing for either a no-deal Brexit or another delay if Boris Johnson becomes Britain’s prime minister next week with a pledge to renegotiate a deal the bloc says it will not reopen.
Such is the concern about the likely impact on the $18.7 trillion EU economy that European capitals are ramping up pressure on Ireland to accelerate preparations for a no-deal exit that could roil financial markets and dislocate trade.“If they come and ask us to renegotiate the Brexit deal, we will say ‘Thanks, but no thanks’,” said an EU diplomat involved in what is now three years of talks since the 2016 referendum in which Britons voted 52%-48% to leave the bloc.
The bloc’s priority is to support EU member Ireland and prevent a return to the 30 years of violence between mostly Protestant unionists who want to keep Northern Ireland British and mainly Catholic nationalists seeking a united Ireland.A no-deal Brexit could tip Britain into recession, undermine sluggish euro zone growth and weaken London’s claim to be the world’s pre-eminent international financial centre.
Johnson has said the EU must “look deep into our eyes” and realise he would go for a no-deal Brexit. The EU is determined not to reopen talks on the 600-page-long divorce treaty known as the Withdrawal Agreement. To avoid a no-deal there are two options: a compromise on a revamped political declaration on future EU-UK ties that goes together with the exit treaty, or a delay.
The other option is simply to delay Brexit — a course Johnson has repeatedly ruled out and which some EU leaders see as pointless unless there is the chance of breaking the political deadlock in London.
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