They have not even started their consultations in the margins of the G7 summit in Biarritz, France, but European President Donald Tusk and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson have already warned each other this afternoon. Johnson must be careful not to go down in history as “Mr. No Deal,” said Tusk, and the first one turned the debt issue around.
Tusk and Johnson will talk about the Brexit tomorrow when both men are present at the G7 summit in Biarritz. Tusk said to journalists this afternoon that he is curious about the ideas Johnson has about avoiding a Brexit without agreement.
But, he immediately made clear, the EU is not going to cooperate in a Brexit without the divorce agreement. The agreement with the backstop that Johnson wants to get rid of. “Yet I hope he won’t go down in history as “Mr. No Deal,” says Tusk.
An objection that Johnson simply reflected. “I would like to tell our friends in the EU that if they don’t want a Brexit without an agreement, we have to get rid of that backstop in the treaty. If Donald Tusk doesn’t want to go down in history as “Mr. No Deal,” then I hope he keeps that in mind.”
Johnson took a first foreign trip to Berlin and Paris this week, but Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron did not get much out of it. The divorce agreement, including the backstop emergency procedure, remains what it is.
Merkel suggested to Johnson to come up with a definitive solution for the Irish border within 30 days so that the backstop would become devoid of any object, a challenge Johnson gladly accepted. But what the solution should look like is not at all clear.
