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Welcoming Ireland’s Leo Varadkar to Paris for talks at the Élysée on Tuesday, Macron said that as the clock ticked down and a no-deal Brexit became more likely, it was far from evident that the EU would agree to a British request for a further article 50 extension.
“A long extension, implying the UK takes part in European elections and European institutions, has nothing easy or automatic about it,” Macron said. “I say that again very strongly. Our priority must be the good functioning of the EU and the single market. The EU can’t be held hostage long-term by the resolution of a political crisis in the UK.”
He continued: “The three times rejection of the withdrawal agreement by the House of Commons and the rejection of all alternative plans now puts us on the path of a UK exit without a deal.
“As the European council decided in March, it’s now up to the UK to present a credible alternative plan backed by a majority before 10 April in order to avoid that. If the UK isn’t capable – almost three years after the referendum – of putting forward a solution that gets a majority, it will have decided itself, de facto, to leave without a deal. And we can’t avoid failure for the UK.” [...]