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Brexit deal with UK ‘seems not possible’: Finnish EU presidency
HELSINKI, Sept 6, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – An agreement with Britain to avoid a no-
deal Brexit now appears impossible as the country is in “quite a mess”,
Finland’s prime minister, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency,
said Friday.
“I hope that we can reach a situation where this (Brexit) can be solved so
that there is no mess, but it seems not possible now,” Antti Rinne told
reporters after a meeting with European Parliament president David Sassoli in
Helsinki.
“The situation in Britain is quite a mess now. We don’t know what’s
happening there. It seems very obvious that we are not getting Brexit with an
agreement”.
On Thursday British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would “rather be
dead in a ditch” than delay Brexit beyond the current deadline of October 31,
despite moves by members of the country’s parliament to force a no-deal
Brexit off the table.
Johnson has insisted that there has been “substantial progress” in talks
with the EU to change the arrangements over the Irish border and thus open
the path to reach a new deal on the terms of the UK’s exit.
But the prime minister’s critics have accused him of running down the
clock to a no-deal Brexit.
Other EU member states have said in recent days that they have not yet
seen any concrete proposals from London to replace the so-called Irish
‘backstop’.
“We know what they don’t want but we are still struggling to understand
what they do want,” France’s Europe minister Amelie De Montchalin told French
radio on Thursday.
BSS/AFP/RY/1735 hrs