The EU shot down Theresa May’s hopes of renegotiating Brexit tonight insisting the deal on the table is already the ‘best available’.
European Council chief Donald Tusk, French president Emmanuel Macron and the Irish government moved to kill off the PM’s hopes despite her emerging victorious in a series of Commons votes.
The PM won approval from MPs for her plan of returning to Brussels to demand more concessions on the Irish border backstop.
But Mr Macron warned the deal was ‘not renegotiable’, and Mr Tusk also underlined the challenge the premier now faces by immediately rejecting the idea.
‘The backstop is part of the Withdrawal Agreement, and the Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation,’ he said.
The French President (pictured left in Greece today) and Donald Tusk (right) immediately shot down Theresa May’s hopes of renegotiating Brexit tonight, insisting the deal on the table is already the ‘best available’
Emmanuel Macron’s (centre in Greece today) intervention comes as the EU appears set to rapidly kill off the Prime Minister’s hopes of salvaging her two year negotiation
Speaking in Cyprus, Mr Macron said: ‘As the European Council in December clearly indicated, the Withdrawal Agreement negotiated between the UK and EU is the best agreement possible.
‘It is not renegotiable.’
Mr Macron called on Mrs May to present the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier with her next steps for avoiding a no-deal Brexit on March 29, which he said ‘no-one wants, but … we must all, despite everything, prepare for’.
Mrs May spoke to EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker this morning before vowing to her Brexiteer rebels she would push for a renegotiation.
He is thought to have repeated the EU position there would be no renegotiation.
In a statement issued following the outcome of tonight’s Westminster votes the Irish government said: ‘The EU position on the Withdrawal Agreement, including the backstop, is set out in the conclusions of the December meeting of the European Council. It has not changed.’ ‘The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for re-negotiation.’
Earlier Manfred Weber, a senior MEP tipped to succeed Mr Juncker as European commission president, suggested Spain could make a new grab for Gibraltar and the £39billion divorce bill could be pushed up.
Mrs May spoke to EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured in Brussels today) this morning before vowing to her Brexiteer rebels she would push for a renegotiation
Manfred Weber, a senior MEP who could succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President, said fishing rights, Gibraltar and the £39billion divorce bill would all need to be looked at again
The Prime Minister has said the deal must be re-written if she has any hope of overturning the 230-vote drubbing MPs inflicted on it two weeks ago.
Mr Weber’s warning comes a day after EU negotiator Michel Barnier’s deputy Sabine Weyand warned the deal could not be re-opened at all.
Mr Weber, who heads the biggest group in the European Parliament, said the existing deal is a ‘compromise between many interests’.
Mr Weber said: ‘If there is now a unilateral attempt to reopen the agreement, the consequence will be that not just the backstop has to be renegotiated – then the Gibraltar question, the question of how much money Britain has to pay for exiting, the question of citizens’ rights will have to be renegotiated.’
Mr Weber, the German leader of the European People’s Party, added: ‘If we reopen (it), then everything will be reopened.
‘And to be honest, I don’t see much sense in that.’
He said what is needed from Britain is ‘clear orientation’ on the two sides’ long-term relationship.
Emmanuel Macron’s intervention comes as the EU appears set to rapidly kill off the Prime Minister’s hopes of salvaging her two year negotiation
Yesterday, Ms Weyand said the British government needed to change position if there was to be a deal in time for exit day on March 29.
The German diplomat, who has been the deputy to Mr Barnier during the Brexit negotiations, said Brussels had a ‘margin’ for movement on the political declaration about the future trade deal.
But speaking at a conference in Brussels she said the divorce deal was locked and there would be ‘no more negotiations’ – ruling out a time limit on the backstop demanded by Tory Brexiteer MPs.
She said the negotiation was ‘finished’ and dismissed calls for changes to the Irish backstop as ‘like Groundhog Day’.
The intervention is a fresh blow to Theresa May’s hopes of salvaging her deal following the 230-vote drubbing two weeks ago. Downing Street said today the deal had to ‘change’ if it were ever to be agreed by MPs.
Sabine Weyand (left with Michel Barnier) said the British government needed to change position if there was to be a deal in time for exit day on March 29
She told the European Policy Centre think-tank: ‘It is quite a challenge to see how you can construct from a diversity of the opposition a positive majority for the deal.’
She said there appeared to be a lack of ‘ownership’ in Britain of the agreement struck between the two sides in November, and that there was insufficient transparency in the prime minister’s moves.
And Ms Weyand warned: ‘There will be no more negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement.’
The diplomat said some of the problems caused by opposition to the so-called ‘Irish backstop’ – designed to keep open the EU-UK land border on the island of Ireland – by changing some of its demands on post-Brexit trade.
‘Where we do have margin is on the political declaration,’ she said.
Britain remaining in a customs union, or even the EU single market, could help reach a final agreement, Ms Weyand said, adding: ‘We need decisions on the UK side on the direction of travel.’
Ms Weyand said the ratification of the EU-UK deal would build the trust necessary to build a new relationship.
She ruled out bowing to British calls to set a time limit to the backstop beyond which this insurance policy would lapse.
She said: ‘A time-limit on the backstop defeats the purpose of the backstop because it means that once the backstop expires you stand there with no solution for this border.’
Ms Weyand continued: ‘We are open to alternative arrangements’ on the Irish border, she told a conference. ‘The problem with the Brady amendment is that it does not spell out what they are.
‘It’s not a criticism of them because they don’t exist.’
However, she urged British lawmakers not to view the backstop, which would keep the UK in a customs arrangement with the EU until a better way is found to avoid checks on the Irish border, as pre-judging how a better trade deal may be struck:
‘The backstop is not a prerequisite for the future relationship,’ she said. ‘We are open to alternative proposals.’
She also said if and when EU leaders discuss delaying Brexit by agreeing to extend negotiations, they ‘will require certain elements of information… and one of them is the purpose of extension’.
‘They would want to be reassured about that at the end of the extension there will be clarity,’ she said. ‘The idea of going into serial extensions is not very popular on the EU side.’