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The Liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt picked up on comments made by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on Tuesday that the door to the EU would remain open to Britain during Brexit negotiations.
“I agree,” he said. “But like Alice in Wonderland, not all the doors are the same. It will be a brand new door, with a new Europe, a Europe without rebates, without complexity, with real powers and with unity.” [...]
The UK also enjoys a permanent opt-out from joining the single currency and can pick and choose on some justice and police policies – special arrangements that irritate some politicians who think they make the EU too complicated.
Macron and Verhofstadt were clear that the door would close once Britain formally leaves the EU at the end of Brexit negotiations in March 2019. From that moment, the door is shut and Britain would have to apply for membership if it wished to rejoin. [...]