{"id":126257,"date":"2017-10-24T05:28:40","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T09:28:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=126257"},"modified":"2017-10-24T05:28:40","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T09:28:40","slug":"eu-chief-says-brexit-talks-are-toughest-test-urges-unity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/24\/eu-chief-says-brexit-talks-are-toughest-test-urges-unity\/","title":{"rendered":"EU chief says Brexit talks are toughest test, urges unity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Brexit<\/a>
Brexit \u201cis still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat,\u201d European Council President Tusk said. (Photo<\/a>: European People’s Party\/Flickr<\/a>, CC BY 2.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BRUSSELS\u2014European Union chief Donald Tusk warned Tuesday that talks on Britain’s departure from the EU remain the bloc’s toughest test, and he renewed calls for unity among the U.K.’s 27 partners.<\/p>\n

Brexit \u201cis still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat,\u201d European Council President Tusk said.<\/p>\n

Debriefing EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France on last week’s EU summit, Tusk said that \u201cit is, in fact, up to London how this will end: with a good deal, no deal or no Brexit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Britain is set to leave the EU in March 2019, but the Brexit talks are progressing very slowly, held up by differences over the size of the departure bill, the rights of citizens directly hit by Brexit and the status of the Ireland-Northern-Ireland border.<\/p>\n

EU leaders say those issues must be addressed before the negotiations can be broadened to future relations and trade. British Prime Minister Theresa May wants the issues to be discussed at the same time.<\/p>\n

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker took a swipe at people seeking to undermine the talks, following a leaked report of his Brexit dinner with May last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commission is not negotiating in a hostile mood. We want a deal. Those who don’t want a deal \u2014 the ‘no dealers’ \u2014 they have no friends in the commission. We want a fair deal with Britain and we will have a fair deal with Britain,\u201d Juncker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA ‘no deal’ is not our working assumption,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

A report in the German Sunday newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung claimed that May was \u201cbegging for help\u201d from her EU partners during the Brussels dinner.<\/p>\n

May said Monday that she has \u201ca degree of confidence\u201d that Brexit talks will move to their decisive second phase by December.<\/p>\n

May has said Britain will pay what it owes but the amount Britain has suggested, around 20 billion euros ($24 billion), falls far short of the EU estimate of 60 billion euros ($70 billion or more).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BRUSSELS\u2014European Union chief Donald Tusk warned Tuesday that talks on Britain’s departure from the EU remain the bloc’s toughest test, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":126265,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,483,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-126257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-politics","category-news-w","mauthors-lorne-cook","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}