- The Guardian has reported that the French government has threatened to veto a further Brexit extension.
- “It’s very worrying. The British must tell us what they want,” Le Drian, the French foreign minister, said.
Its much more of the same with Brexit, up in the air, and European leaders patience is running out. Due to a lack of realistic proposals being put forward by Downing Street, the Guardian has reported that the French government has threatened to veto a further Brexit extension due to the “worrying” lack of progress in the recent talks, as EU diplomats expressed their frustration at being caught up in game-playing by the British government.
Key notes from the article:
In a sign of rising exasperation, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, highlighted the lack of realistic proposals being put forward by Downing Street as an alternative to the Irish backstop.
“It’s very worrying. The British must tell us what they want,” Le Drian said.
When asked if an extension beyond 31 October was possible, Le Drian said the EU’s patience was waning. “We are not going to do this [extend the deadline] every three months,” the French minister added. The Benn bill, due to receive royal assent this week, would extend the UK’s membership until 31 January 2020.
The UK government wants to remove the Irish backstop, which would keep Northern Ireland in the single market and the UK in a customs union to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
An EU diplomat said that “given the present stance of No 10 and the apparent lack of concrete and implementable UK proposals to substitute the backstop, frustration is growing rapidly among the EU27″.
The French foreign minister’s threat of blocking an extension will be seen as an expression of heightened irritation but EU sources have suggested it is unlikely to come to pass.
EU leaders have said a second referendum or general election would be sufficient reason to extend again and, for all the frustration at the British, there is a reluctance to appear to be pushing the UK out of the bloc.
The European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has repeatedly said a no-deal Brexit would never be an EU choice.
– The Guardian wrote
FX implications:
GBP/USD is climbing back on the market’s presumption that a no-deal Brexit may be blocked. GBP/USD is a touch lower in the open, -0.10% so far.
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