Brexit Clash: This time, it’s serious

What really happened at the “Article 50 format”(Brexit) meeting at the #EU summit with Mrs. May on Thursday evening? According to new reports in the “Guardian” and the “FT”, it was even more serious than we thought.

Here are the links.

How No 10 tried, and failed, to contrive EU rescue of May’s deal

In reality, the Downing Street aide was in town for the start of secret, intensive talks with two of the EU’s most senior officials, Piotr Serafin from Donald Tusk’s European council, and Martin Selmayr, the secretary general of the European commission, in an attempt to stage-manage an EU rescue of the prime minister’s Brexit deal.

Theresa May’s Brexit strategy left brutally exposed by Brussels failure

But leaders ripped up a prepared script on Thursday night in which they would have offered both warm words and the promise of further assurances in January.

May threatens to crash Brexit deal after summit showdown

 In a frank confrontation with the EU’s high command on the margins of a European Council meeting in Brussels, the UK prime minister said if she could not win any more concessions she might as well hold a snap vote by parliament on her Brexit deal next week.

Hier noch eine kurze Zusammenfassung für meine deutschsprachigen Leser:

Es gab wieder einmal Geheimverhandlungen zwischen London und Brüssel vor dem Gipfel – mit den üblichen Verdächtigen (Selmayr…).

Am Donnerstag Abend haben die EU-Chefs ursprünglich geplante Klarstellungen, die für May günstig gewesen wären, gestrichen.

Daraufhin drohte May, den Brexit-Deal in der kommenden Woche zur Abstimmung ins Unterhaus zu bringen – und ihn dort scheitern zu lassen.

Das ist kein freundlicher Austausch unter “Partnern” mehr, sondern fast schon ein kalter Krieg…

Siehe auch “Top Secret: Wie der Brexit-Deal zustande kam”