During past crises, EU leaders have turned playing the clock and deferring decisions into something resembling performance art. Brexit is likely to prove no exception.
European capitals are bracing for Theresa May, the UK prime minister, to request an extension to Britain’s 29 March exit date from the EU within a matter of weeks. The EU’s precise response is far from certain.
For Brussels, such a request to delay Brexit will be what Germans call Chefsache — a political matter so important it will only be settled by the bosses at Europe’s top table.
Moving the exit date, after all, needs unanimous support from the 27 remaining EU leaders.
Diplomats see an outright refusal of a UK request as almost inconceivable. One senior Brussels official said it would entail the EU “taking responsibility for no-deal” and breaking an important unwritten rule of the union’s Brexit strategy: avoiding blame.
“Everyone’s instinct in that situation is to find time. Kicking the can down the road is what we do,” said one senior member state official handling Brexit. “They will find any reason to avoid a crash out.”
But with any approval will come terms and conditions that are harder to predict. Granting an extension is not simply a yes or no answer.
Leaders will need to decide how long the delay should last, when to approve it, and what would be expected of the UK, both before and after the extension decision. It will set constraints, in other words, that could frame the real endgame of Brexit.
The purpose
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said EU leaders will need two questions to be answered: “Why and how long?”
The easiest scenario for the EU is a “technical” delay to allow Mrs May a few extra months to ratify a package that can command a majority in the House of Commons. But after her deal was defeated this month by a 230 vote margin, the biggest in parliamentary history, it will be a titanic task to come close to winning Commons approval.
The best grounds for a longer extension — from nine months to a year — also seems unlikely to emerge imminently.
EU leaders say they will make time for a UK election or referendum, but MPs seem some way off from turning to voters to break the Westminster deadlock.
That leaves the EU facing a policy dilemma. Any UK extension bid will probably be coupled with a renegotiation request. The realism of the demands will be a big factor in deciding whether — and for how long — to prolong Britain’s membership.
“It is clear on EU’s side that an extension will not be given as a blank cheque,” said Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s Brexit co-ordinator. “We need to be absolutely clear that there should be a ‘plan’ before agreeing to it.”
Worst of all for the EU would be a request to extend because Westminster is gridlocked and can decide on nothing else.
If passed in a vote on Tuesday, a prominent amendment backed by Yvette Cooper, the senior Labour MP, could require the government to make exactly such a request in late February.
The length
There is no settled view, either within or between European capitals, on how long an extension should be. Sir Ivan Rogers, Britain’s former EU ambassador to Brussels, has warned approval “is not a given”, noting that EU leaders have been inclined to be “less flexible” on Brexit issues than some “Brussels apparatchiks”.
“I still encounter a lot of scepticism in other capitals about whether it serves much purpose, if all it does is to license a prolongation of the same old self-absorbed British political debate,” he said in a recent lecture.
The impatience among some EU leaders was vividly voiced by Dalia Grybauskaitė, the Lithuanian president, who declared in Davos that “it’s better to finish this chaos sooner” rather than defer Britain’s exit date.
One senior EU diplomat echoed her view, saying it would be “dangerous” to draw out the process, since it would allow populists across Europe to claim Britain was being trapped. “They’ll all claim [the EU] is a prison,” said the diplomat. With European elections looming, some officials in Paris share this view.
At the other end of the spectrum are those, such as European Council president Donald Tusk, who are more open to a longer extension. This would seek to avoid Britain’s indecision being staggered, with new extension and renegotiation requests arriving every two or three months. “That’s the worst outcome,” said one senior EU figure, who added it would be “unbearable”.
Peter Altmaier, an influential German minister and ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel, has repeatedly stressed London should be given “sufficient time to clarify its position”.
The big practical impediments are European elections in May and the inauguration of the new European Parliament on July 2. If the UK remained a member without participating in the elections, it would raise questions not only about the disenfranchisement of UK voters, but the legitimacy of the parliament itself. Mr Barnier said there as yet is “no clear legal answer” to the election conundrum.
The conditions
Diplomats expect EU leaders to manage these dilemmas through what some are calling a “conditional extension”.
The first of these conditions may relate to the reasons the UK gives for seeking extra time. If the EU thinks Britain is making unrealistic renegotiation demands, or has no discernible plan, EU leaders could delay the exit date all the same — but say that the delay is purely for no-deal planning.
One EU diplomat said it would be a way to “keep the pressure on London” to pass a variant of the deal, or to come up with more plausible renegotiation demands. It would also give both sides more time to improve no-deal contingency plans, which remain patchy at best.
In any event, a decision on an extension is expected to be deferred to as late as March, even if Britain lodges an early request.
EU leaders including Emmanuel Macron of France have made clear they want to avoid more special summits on Brexit, and some time for “assessment” would also be needed. The next scheduled European Council is on 21 March.
The second option is to set constraints on any future extension requests. Some commission officials have suggested that the European Council, for instance, make clear that another extension is impossible unless it is for a UK referendum or general election. Going beyond 2 July without holding European elections in Britain could also be ruled out.
One veteran of EU summits said his expectation was a terse statement on an extension that would be “short but extendable” as long as certain conditions were met. “They don’t like closing off options,” the diplomat said.