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Mostrando entradas de noviembre, 2017

Stepping forward

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Theresa May won backing from key ministers to improve her offer on the Brexit divorce bill to about £40 billion ($53 billion), ITV News reported. Now the prime minister wants to make sure she’ll get something in return before putting the offer on the negotiating table. May – who hasn’t said anything publicly about the size of a new offer – keeps saying the “U.K. and the EU should step forward together.” That means she doesn’t want to make an offer on the money unless she’s sure she’ll get the green light for trade talks to start in return. It could cost her her job otherwise, as plenty of lawmakers – and voters – don’t think Britain should be paying anything like the sums Brussels is demanding. ITV’s Robert Peston also reported that a key group of ministers agreed that the European Court of Justice will have a role after Brexit for EU citizens. If confirmed, that would be a major breakthrough on citizens’ rights, one of three sticking points blocking the move from divorc

Can she do it?

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Theresa May is surrounded . Even on her own side she has Brexit hardliners pushing her to be bolder, Europhiles wanting her to go softer, and a growing list of lawmakers who want her gone. All this as her key Brexit legislation goes to Parliament, where the fragility of her minority government will be plain to see. That weakness is underlined today as the opposition Labour Party offers her a deal, Bloomberg’s Rob Hutton reports. Telling her she doesn’t “have the authority” to deliver an exit deal that protects jobs and the economy, Labour’s Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said May should work with the “sensible majority” in Parliament pushing for a two-year transition. There are plenty of her own Tories in that group. A looming deadline to make a deal with Europe looks increasingly out of reach, and EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier is talking openly of planning for talks to break down without a deal. That raises the prospect of Brexit being off the agenda at December’s cruci

Staying united.

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European diplomats will start hashing out today what they want from the next stage of talks, seeking a united stance they can present to the U.K. Bloomberg’s Ian Wishart reports from Brussels that envoys from the EU27 will discuss the transition deal that the U.K. so badly wants and the outline of the future trade relationship. They will look for a common position on how long the transition should last, and what they want in return, according to a document prepared for the meeting. The EU has adopted this strategy before: Set out a fixed position and expect the U.K. to agree to it. While the 27 have maintained a united stance in the first phase of talks, divisions are more likely once negotiations move on to the future relationship as each country will have different trade priorities. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the second phase will “undeniably be more complicated than the first.” On Wednesday, the envoys will start to discuss the ideal length of the trans