Brexit: leading MEPs welcome EU-UK political agreement on Northern Ireland

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Statement by David McAllister, Bernd Lange and Nathalie Loiseau on the EU-UK political agreement to resolve outstanding issues relating to the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland. “We welcome today’s political agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which shows that practical […]

A new way forward on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: political agreement in principle on the Windsor Framework

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. Today, the European Commission and the Government of the United Kingdom reached a political agreement in principle on the Windsor Framework. This constitutes a comprehensive set of joint solutions aimed at addressing, in a definitive way, the practical challenges faced by citizens and businesses […]

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Commission launches four new infringement procedures against the UK

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has today launched four new infringement procedures against the United Kingdom for not complying with significant parts of the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland. They come in addition to the infringement procedures launched on 15 June 2022. Despite repeated calls […]

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Commission proposes bespoke arrangements to benefit Northern Ireland

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has today proposed bespoke arrangements to respond to the difficulties that people in Northern Ireland have been experiencing because of Brexit, by further facilitating the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. This follows extensive discussions over the past […]

Withdrawal Agreement: Commission sends letter of formal notice to the United Kingdom for breach of its obligations under the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has sent today a letter of formal notice to the United Kingdom for breaching the substantive provisions of the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, as well as the good faith obligation under the Withdrawal Agreement. This marks the beginning of […]

Tomorrow’s UK general election: Will Tories win majority to shoot an abrupt Brexit or a hung parliament will prolong January’s exit to 2050?

The United Kingdom is about to go to the polls tomorrow to elect a new Parliament with Boris Johnson struggling to ensure the majority in order to promote his “deal” with the European Union. Opinion polls show that the gap is narrowing between the Tories and the Labour parties but Boris Johnson is still ahead […]

Brexit: European Commission recommends the European Council (Article 50) to endorse the agreement reached on the revised Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland and revised Political Declaration

This article is brought to you in association with the European Commission. The European Commission has today recommended the European Council (Article 50) to endorse the agreement reached at negotiator level on the Withdrawal Agreement, including a revised Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland, and approve a revised Political Declaration on the framework of the future […]

Boris ‘single-handed’ threatens mainland Europe; can he afford a no-deal Brexit?

No doubt a no-deal Brexit will test the unity of the United Kingdom, undermine the position of London as leading international financial center and surely divide deeply the governing Conservative Party. Still this party’s new leader and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now sailing full steam ahead towards this dreadful option. One possible explanation […]

Brexit: UK to suffer from EU’s uncompromising stance

Last Tuesday, 29 January, 317 British MPs voted for (301 against) the Tory Sir Graham Brady’s amendment, to replace the ‘Northern Ireland Backstop’ with elusive “alternative arrangements“. This NI Backstop is an integral part of the Brexit Agreement, PM Theresa May concluded with the other 27 EU leaders last December. It guarantees that, after the […]

Britain in chaos: May stays as Tory leader and PM but none can defuse the Brexit time bomb

Yesterday night the embattled British Prime Minister and President of the Conservative Party, Theresa May, won an intraparty no confidence vote. This was a Tory party internal procedure, triggered by members of her own parliamentary group. In the final result 200 Conservative MPs voted for May and 117 against her. In this way, she secures […]

Britain’s May won the first round on the Brexit agreement with the EU

Last Tuesday, the British Prime Minister Theresa May, said she has struck a Brexit agreement on the future relationship with the European Union. In reality though this is a withdrawal agreement, not a full trade or otherwise deal for the future relations between the two sides. Yesterday she won the backing of her deeply divided […]

British PM May’s Brexit proposal remains obscure while her government unravels

Only days before, Theresa May, the British Prime Minister is expected to table her proposal for a Brexit deal in the Commons, the British Parliament, and her government appears unraveling. Her transport Minister Joe Johnson resigned last week, having revived the discussion about a second referendum. He was strongly pro-remain in the June 2016 Brexit […]

EU tells Britain stay in as long as you wish

This newspaper has repeatedly asserted there will be no real Brexit, at least in the foreseeable future. Last week, the European Council in Brussels confirmed this. The President of the Council, Donald Tusk, made it clear. He plainly said Britain can remain as a full EU member after the Brexit day of 29 March 2019, […]

EU-UK: A deal synonymous to ‘remain’, England pays the Irish price

On 24 August 2017 the European Sting’s leading article ventured that, “Brexit may finally not really happen; The Brits have second thoughts”. This prediction was based on the basics of a proposal which Theresa May had aired on Thursday 17 August of last year. On this information, the European Sting then reported that between Britain […]

Window for a Brexit deal: Brussels to think again May’s proposal

This is the first time the British Prime Minister Theresa May can tell mainland Europeans, she can guarantee her Tory conservative Party won’t topple her over her Brexit proposal. The reason is that, last week, she marked a triumph at the annual conference of the governing Party at Birmingham. Obviously, the burning subject of the […]

Who can unlock the stalled Brexit negotiations? UK Premier sticks to her proposal

The Brexit cataclysm comes to its apex. On the one side is Prime Minister Theresa May, and on the other around 50 unrepentant Brexiteer Tory MPs. The sides are about to cross swords within and without Parliament. Reportedly, May could pass her own – not so mild but negotiable in Brussels – version of Brexit […]

Northern Ireland: Parliament wants to secure post-Brexit regional funding

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. Continuing the PEACE and Interreg programmes after Brexit, as the EU Commission intends, is crucial to peaceful development in Northern Ireland, MEPs say. EU regional funding should be maintained at an adequate level post-2020, says a resolution which was approved by 565 votes in […]

Brexit: No withdrawal agreement without a “backstop” for the Northern Ireland/Ireland border

This article is brought to you in association with the European Parliament. The European Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group insist that the withdrawal agreement must include a viable backstop for the Northern Ireland – Ireland border. The European Parliament’s Brexit Steering Group (BSG) has been briefed on the negotiations that have taken place over the last two […]

10 Downing street: Another desperate attempt to unite Britain on Brexit

Once more, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, is trying to pool together her deeply divided cabinet and country and formulate a common proposal for a Brexit deal with the EU. In the latest development, the ‘Leave’ campaign ministers and the Bremain group are reported by 10 Downing Street to have agreed on a ‘business […]

To Brexit, or not to Brexit…rather not: 10 Downing Street, London

Almost exactly two years have elapsed after the Brits voted to leave the European Union. Tomorrow, Tuesday 12 June, the elected lower House of the Parliament, the Commons, is expected to open the way for Britain to remain in EU’s customs union and the single market for an extended period of time. Most probably, Prime […]

Brexit negotiations: Can May’s Britain bounce back?

It was last Monday when the EU and UK announced a transition agreement till the end of 2020 providing thus the opportunity for a smoother Brexit. However, there are still unsolved issues that need intensive discussions such as the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The business world saw this accord positively as they will […]

Is Britain to sail alone in the high seas of trade wars?

If Britain is counting on the US for a favorable bilateral trade agreement after Brexit, Donald Trump the President of ‘America first,’ rushed last Thursday to destroy that Brit dream; he announced 25% extra tariffs on steel and 10% on aluminum imports, prompting anger and retaliatory measures from America’s closest political allies, Canada and the […]

Brexit negotiations: back to square one, tougher words, no good faith

This past week, the EU and UK  Brexit negotiators’ solemn exchanges became for the first time, really aggressive and plain. Since the beginning of September 2017, during the Michel Barnier – David Davis meetings there had being difficult moments. Nevertheless, the two chief negotiators never questioned the good faith of the other side; not any […]

Hazy ‘breakthrough’ saves PM May, leaves Ireland in limbo: Brexit

With only a couple of hours sleep in the very early hours of last Friday, the British PM Theresa May boarded a RAF aircraft and landed in Brussels before dawn. Weary as she was, she rushed to Berlaymont building, the EU Commission headquarters. There she met Jean-Claude Juncker the President of the European Commission and […]

EU’s unsparing question to UK: now what kind of future relations do you want?

This week, the countdown starts for Britain to offer final answers, about the three Brexit prerequisites: the divorce alimony, the future of the 4.5 million European citizens who work on the wrong side of the English Channel and the Irish border. Only then will Brussels pass to the second phase of the talks, to discuss […]

Britain offers more money for an orderly Brexit but the Irish question resurges

If last Friday’s Reuters report from Brussels is correct and Theresa May and Donald Tusk agreed to solve the Brexit dead-end in ten days, then the wild Brexiteers must have retreated  and the orderly exit side has won the first round. Tusk, the President of the European Council said in a tweet that he told […]

Brexit: PM May must hush Boris Johnson to unlock the negotiations

Last Thursday night in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, the French President Emmanuel Macron, backed by the German Chancellor Angela Merkel, told the British Prime Minister Theresa May, there will be no change in the agenda of the Brexit talks; first the terms of the divorce will be agreed and then the future trade relations between […]

The EU stops being soft with 10 Downing Street about Brexit

After the failed successive meetings about Brexit between the European Union and the British negotiation teams, the European Commission decided to stiffen its position. Last week EU’s executive arm issued a Press Release saying, “As it was a UK’s decision to leave the EU, it’s a UK’s responsibility to propose solutions…”. One of the most […]

Brexit talks: Today the world to hear of a predictable failure

Last Monday’s events in Brussels were very characteristic of how perilously the Brits take the Brexit or more precisely how unripe they are to discuss this precarious question. When the two negotiating teams sat down for the first time to produce some tangible progress, the leader of the UK side, Brexit Secretary David Davis and […]

Brexit talks started with a London handicap and Brussels’ sternness

Last Monday’s first meeting between the British and the EU Brexit negotiations teams gave a clear indication that London has started watering down its extra hard stance.The threat of a calamitous no-deal Brexit has visibly exited from the picture. The gratuitous cheerful and smiling David Davis, the chief Brit negotiator was confronted by the visible […]

May led Britain to chaos, now looks for way out with unpredictable DUP

As the dust settles after last week’s electoral pandemonium in Britain, the country finds itself in a true political chaos. Prime Minster Theresa May is overtly and severely disputed within her own party, while the closeness of the percentage results between Tories (42%) and Labour (40%) has totally changed the overall scenery of the political […]

ECB intervenes to clean May’s and Schäuble’s mess

Last Thursday 8 June, on the day the Britons were punishing Theresa May for her mistakes and arrogance, the European Central Bank under Mario Draghi was preparing for a less favorable politico-economic environment and a much longer disinflationary period. Indirectly, Mario Draghi blamed the dying out inflation on the avowed neoliberals, of the kind of […]

Threats from mammoth banks and Brussels fuel May’s poll rates

The Theresa May brexiteer government has started feeling the heat about their choice to fight an electoral battle on a clear and loud plea, that a vote for Tories on 8 June is a vote for a hard Brexit. And mind you the closer we get to the polling date the more heated the controversy […]