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U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May formally appealed to the EU Friday for yet another extension of the U.K.'s departure date, perhaps until June 30. Or maybe until May 22. Or maybe sooner.
The two-and-a-half page letter to Council President Donald Tusk sparked alarm in Brussels. Significant concerns remain that the continued uncertainty poses a threat to the integrity of the European Parliament election and that a half-in-half-out U.K. could adopt a policy of future non-cooperation that the EU would be unable to control. EU leaders still have not had an answer to the questions they asked when they delayed Brexit day last time: What exactly would such an extension be for, and how would it achieve a different outcome?
May's meandering missive was more of an expression of frustration than an exposition of a plan. It included a rehash of her recent lament over the failure to find a consensus in London — "This impasse cannot be allowed to continue" — as if Tusk, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker or any of the other 440 million people in the rest of the EU were at fault for the impasse in Westminster.
And there was an update on the status of her negotiations with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn — "we agreed follow-up discussions that are now taking place" — as if an agreement to more discussions would somehow be reassuring or illuminating. In any case, those talks appeared stalled on Friday, with a Labour party spokesperson saying that May was offering no "real change or compromise."
Even officials who have followed the Brexit process intimately from the beginning were left struggling to asses the bottom line.
Philippe Lamberts, the Belgian leader of the Greens group in the European Parliament, offered this take: "As long as they're not gone, they're here." [...]
So May's promise to undertake "lawful and responsible preparations" to take part in the election generated most attention in Brussels on Friday. But she also expressed a desire to wrap up Brexit in time to cancel the election, leading EU officials to begin calculating the potential winners and losers in the event that the reapportionment of seats approved in anticipation of Brexit is frozen. Many expect the election will be a wild undertaking in Britain, becoming a proxy not just for a second referendum on Brexit, but also on May's handling of Brexit.
Lamberts said he believed that pro-EU forces would prevail.
“Those who have a clear position on Europe will win, while those who want to leave and don’t have clear solutions will not know what to campaign for,” he said, adding that he expected his own Greens, and the Scottish National Party (SNP), which is a member of the Greens political family, would be among those to gain. “If there are EU elections with the Brits, it’s going to benefit us,” he added. [...]
In the end, May's request for an extension to June 30, but her hope to carry out Brexit by May 23, was largely immaterial. Tusk got out in front of May by proposing a one-year "flextension" under which the U.K. would be given time to work out a Brexit plan, but could leave as soon as it was ready.
"How would it work in practice?" a senior EU official quoted Tusk as saying. "We could give the U.K. a year-long extension, automatically terminated once the Withdrawal Agreement has been accepted and ratified by the House of Commons."
"It seems to be a good scenario for both sides, as it gives the U.K. all the necessary flexibility, while avoiding the need to meet every few weeks to further discuss Brexit extensions," the official continued, quoting Tusk.
The concept got a positive reception at a meeting of EU diplomats on Friday morning, though hardly a unanimous one. French President Emmanuel Macron has expressed concerns repeatedly in recent days about the negative consequences of the U.K.'s departure dragging on interminably.
The French government on Friday reiterated those concerns, saying that May needed to articulate a more concrete plan. [...]