As reported by Bloomberg, UK Prime Minister Theresa May is making plans for a last-minute Brexit meeting this weekend.
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Last week, May got an agreement with the European Union on the divorce terms and the negotiations are now focused on the future post-Brexit trade agreement. She met EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels on Wednesday and they made progress on the terms of the agreement, according to officials on both sides. But the text is still not finished. After meeting Juncker for one hour and 50 minutes, May announced that she will return to Brussels for last minute talks on Saturday, just a day before EU leaders are due to sign off on the deal. That wasn’t expected.
“We have given direction to our negotiators this evening. The work on those issues will now start immediately,” May told the BBC. “I believe we have been able to give sufficient direction for them to be able to resolve those remaining issues.”
If they don’t, there’s a chance EU leaders could cancel the gathering, which would deal a major blow to May’s hopes of concluding the negotiations by the end of November. Britain is due to exit the bloc of 28 countries on March 29, with or without a deal.
The EU’s two most powerful countries, Germany and France, are divided over the Sunday summit. While German chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to attend unless the deal is already sealed, French President Emmanuel Macron wants the opportunity to discuss the text himself, rather than leave it to lower-level officials, diplomats with knowledge of the discussions said.
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