The European Union is furious about UK’s hesitation to implement the outcome of the Brexit Referendum. One after the other, EU Officials urge the UK to submit its Brexit request as soon as possible. After the historic Brexit decision, the heavy guns of the EU and Germany see themselves under immense pressure for a reorganization and insist on a quick withdrawal of Britain.
President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz (German SPD), even sent a deadline and demanded that it submits its EU-exit request by Tuesday, the day the EU Summit takes place.
“A reluctance to deliver is just tactics of the British Conservatives and it harms all.”
Schulz did not elaborate on what will happen if UK does not deliver by Tuesday. Will the EU kick UK from …? Oh, wait!
The conservatives in EP are also pushing for a quick delivery and the head of the conservative EPP Group, Manfred Weber (German CSU), criticized the behavior of the British government. “The start of the waiting game in London is unacceptable,” Weber told the Bild am Sonntag and pleaded for a quick exit “within the planned period of two years, better even within one year.”
In an interview also to Bild, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said “Out is Out” and urged UK too to deliver.
BILD: What was the key factor in the defeat of the EU supporters?
Juncker: With hindsight, it is always easy to blame everyone else. The usual reflex is for the finger to be pointed at Brussels. Yet in this case, that is completely wrong: the referendum was called by the British Prime Minister and not by the European Parliament, the Commission or the European Council.
[…]BILD: How will you now deal with the British – will they receive a special status or will they be treated like any other third country?
Juncker: Out means out. The EU Treaties are clear on this matter. Article 50 governs the exit from the European Union and there can also be no renegotiation. Now it is firstly a matter of a clean divorce, because citizens and companies need legal certainty. Can there be a new partnership with the United Kingdom one day? All 27 Member States would have to agree to that. And the United Kingdom would first have to reflect on what it wants itself. There will certainly be no cherry-picking
Already the same day the Referendum outcome was announced, the EU Four issued a tough statement urging UK to submit its Brexit request immediately.
The 6 EU founding members, the Foreign Ministers of Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands who met on Saturday upon an invitation by Berlin kept the same tune.
“We now expect the UK government to provide clarity and give effect to this decision as soon as possible. The relevant provisions of the Lisbon Treaty (article 50 TEU) provide for an orderly departure,” the joint statement said among others.
Of course, the statement of EU’s founding members has no institutional role whatsoever, it’s just a symbolic move to show that in the democratic EU some members are more privileged than the others who tend to be the pariahs working for the privileged ones.
Nevertheless, while the EU loves to see the Brexit as granted and procedures to start …yesterday, the UK is not in a hurry to deliver. Prime Minister David Cameron told the public that
“an exit would not happen soon, as he intended to resign in three months and leave it to his successor to decide “when to trigger Article 50″ of the union’s basic agreement, the Lisbon Treaty, which says that a member state has two years after declaring its desire to leave to negotiate the terms of its exit.”
Also the man considered most likely to be UK’s prime minister in October, Boris Johnson, the former mayor of London, who led the Leave campaign also seemed in no hurry to get the process started.
“In voting to leave the EU, it is vital to stress that there is no need for haste,” Johnson said, “and indeed, as the prime minister has just said, nothing will change over the short term, except that work will have to begin on how to give effect to the will of the people and to extricate this country from the supranational system.”
However, there is another little detail, the legal one: the Referendum was advisory and not mandatory.
“Legal blogger David Allen Green has explained clearly, the measure Britons just voted for “was an advisory not a mandatory referendum,” meaning that it is not legally binding on the government. No matter who the prime minister is, he or she is not required by the outcome to trigger Article 50. And, despite what senior figures in the EU and its other states might say, there is no way for them to force the UK to invoke Article 50.” (via The Intercept)
In a latest development, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that the Scottish Parliament could veto the Brexit and block the implementation of the Referendum outcome.
Scotland could try to veto British exit from the European Union, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has told the BBC‘s Sunday Politics Scotland programme.
But all these internal developments are minor details and apparently non existent for the European Union that claims to suddenly have discovered “democracy” and respect people’s will.” The EU wants Brexit now and most probably tough conditions to scaremonger other exit-ambitious EU members.
Juncker’s full interview in English here
PS Don’t tell Schulz, Juncker, & the 6 founding EU-members about Sturgeon’s intentions because they cannot deal with another crisis. They will collapse and bring the Institution down.
Juncker is a big malakas and a crook to boot, put as “president” (without being elected by EU citizens) by the Germans. All of this mess, including the useless UK politicians, has been caused by third rate people in the EU who have been given the top jobs. The best thing would be for all of them to resign, before the EU collapses, and allow some skilled people to take over the portfolios. In particular, criminals in wheelchairs should be removed from key positions.
For the UK, the ultimatums of Brussels are irrelevant. Juncker is like Breschnew, and Schulz looks like unshaved homeless person
lol
Yet another load of waffle and twaddle.
The UK will decide when to invoke clause 50 and there is sweet FA they can do about it.
They want a quick exit so we have as little time as possible to get the correct deal for US.
I am ecstatic we are leaving, but we are NOT out yet.
Thety’ve alredy started their crap — the same style used against Greece. Now the assholes are saying that merely discussing the Brexit in a meeting will amount to a formal verbal communication and Art 50 will have been invoked.
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This is going to get very nasty indeed, if they continue treating the UK as if it were Greece. Both the Krauts and the French could get some very painful experiences, I would say.
Juncker and Schulz are confusing European politics with a Western saloon (shoot first and ask later whom you killed). What counts is what Merkel says and Merkel is giving her utmost calm & collected. While she says that the EU will have to be consistent, she sees absolutely no hurry to proceed with the divorce. In fact, she even suggested that the Brits should use some time to consider what they have voted for.
Churchill once said that “the trouble with political suicide is that you live to see its consequences”. It seems to me that a lot of politicians are intending to face that trouble.
Yes, Merkel is unique in this. But look what happened when she also tried to solve the refugee crisis — with no help from anyone else. She was almost removed from office by the agressive right wing of her party and the propaganda disseminated to the public. The same could happen again, with the Brexit relations.
Die Welt has called her the ‘EU’s Gravedigger’.
I fully expected the drunker Junckner and silly Schulz to behave as they are doing, but someone should tell them to read their own damn Treaties (not that they usually care about such things). Only the UK can invoke Article 50. If I were Boris and Gove I wouldn’t do it until there is a provisional deal worked out and that wont be until well into next year.
We all love “Die Welt” and the BBC for inviting them to talk-shows, it’s always a warm feel reading their “Fallmerayer” kinda racism and other anti-Greek farts like fat, lazy and corrupt with pension higher than German, in fact it was this toilet-paper that started the antihellenistic hunting aiming on pogroms against Greeks that later came but against refugees.
Will the Partido Socialista Operário Espanhol (Spanish Socialist Party) follow the track o PASOK or of his brother party in Portugal? Let’s wait for this interesting sequence of events.
I predict they will use immigrants to surpress white british people. That will go very violent. Not a single time communist tyranny came down with elections. They brought millions of violent thirld worlders to Europe for a reason.
First you should learn that most of what you or British refugee-haters call immigrants are in fact people with British citizens rights coming from the Commonwealth. But it’s cool to know that you will never be an immigrant and steal our jobs
The Eu Group are pissed off & don’t know what else to do / how else to show their rage at Britain for spoiling their cosy scam.
It is an interesting point that Article 50 is probably the only unilateral action of consequence that a member state can invoke without the “approval” of other member states. It’s got to be frustrating to Juncker et al the be effectively powerless to force or shape the issue. They have no basis for ultimatums, their favorite tool for dealing with troublesome member states. What the UK did reminds me of what our unit commander said in 1967 to the base commander about complaints that parties we were having at the Officers’ Club were a bit too rowdy, “What are you going to do? Send us to Viet Nam without our families?” (We were scheduled to deploy in a couple of months)
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Whether the EU elite likes it or not, the final terms of the “divorce” will have an impact on both the UK and the EU. However, the EU cannot strangle the banks of a non member state, impose budget restrictions on a non member state nor take any other unilateral action that does not result in an equivalent result on the continent. While dealing with the Southern EU states with economic problems, it has been the Southern states that had to suffer the burden of dumb decisions, not Germany and their cabal of sycophants. Brexit will be a totally different issue. The EU Masters and their nations will ultimately carry the burden of any stupidity exhibited in negotiating the final terms. For the first time, these “Masters of the Universe” will actually suffer the consequences of their decisions, and it spooks them
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I have said it before: In the EU system, everyone is in charge, but no one seems responsible. The UK just changed that calculus dramatically.