Theresa May arrives in Dublin for talks with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar on Friday evening after the European Commission agreed to resume talks with British officials over how to find a way through the Brexit impasse.
In Brussels on Thursday, however, the heads of all three EU institutions rejected the British prime minister’s call to reopen the withdrawal agreement to make legally binding changes to the Northern Ireland backstop.
European Council president Donald Tusk said there was “still no breakthrough in sight” after meeting Mrs May but, at the end of an hour-long meeting described by both sides as “robust but constructive”, commission president Jean-Claude Juncker agreed to meet the prime minister again before the end of February.
“It is not going to be easy but crucially president Juncker and I have agreed that talks will now start to find a way through this, to find a way to get this over the line and to deliver on the concerns that [the UK] parliament has so we get a majority in parliament,” Mrs May said as she left Brussels.
The prime minister told Mr Juncker and Mr Tusk that the House of Commons had made clear that it could only approve the withdrawal agreement if it was changed to offer a legally-binding guarantee that Britain could not be trapped indefinitely in the backstop.
But the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator Guy Verhofstadt said she told him she was not seeking to replace the backstop altogether, as Conservative Brexiteers have demanded.
“Mrs May today in the meeting assured us that there will be a backstop, that’s what she said already in Belfast, there is not a question to remove the backstop,” he said.
“For us, an all-weather backstop insurance is absolutely key and if there are problems with this backstop as it is now foreseen in the withdrawal agreement, our proposal is to try to solve the problem in the political declaration.”
Dinner
Irish officials on Thursday played down the significance of Friday’s meeting over dinner, which was requested by Downing Street. Officials stressed that it will not be a bilateral negotiation on Brexit, as negotiations with Britain are handled by the European Commission team led by Michel Barnier.
Mr Varadkar will be in Belfast earlier on Friday for meetings with Northern Ireland’s main political parties.
“These meetings will provide an opportunity to discuss the ongoing political impasse in Northern Ireland which has been without an Executive and an Assembly for more than two years, and to get the parties’ views on how progress can be made to break the current deadlock.
"The Taoiseach will also hear the parties’ concerns on the latest Brexit developments and [the meetings] will allow the Taoiseach to brief them on his meetings in Brussels earlier in the week,” the Government said on Thursday night.
Mr Varadkar and Mrs May will discuss the continued suspension of the Stormont institutions, as well as Brexit.
Senior Irish sources said the Taoiseach would give the same message to the prime minister that she received in Brussels on Thursday – that a renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement, including its provisions on the Irish backstop, is not on the table.
But Dublin is ready to talk about addressing British concerns about the backstop in the political declaration that accompanies the withdrawal agreement.
