British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to attend an emergency European Council summit on Wednesday evening urging its members to provide a short extension to the long-pending process of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.
The heads of the 28 EU member states in Wednesday's meeting will discuss, on May's request, an extension to the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement until June 30, Al Jazeera reported.
But a longer extension with a clause to end the UK's membership earlier if a deal is passed - a so-called "flextension" - emerged as a more likely outcome on Tuesday.
In addition, the agreement also includes the provision whereby Britain would not interfere with the EU's objectives while it remains a member of the union.
The UK was initially scheduled to leave the block on March 29, but during the last European Council meeting, the UK was provided with a two-tier deadline of May 27, should the withdrawal agreement be passed in the House of Commons, or April 12 if it did not.
While the British parliament has failed to reach an agreement on the deal, talks between May's Conservative party and the opposition Labour party have so far produced futile results.
On Tuesday, May met German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin to hold talks on a short delay to the Brexit process as well as preventing efforts to not allow the UK to leave the 28-member EU bloc without any deal.
On the same day, May flew to Paris to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, another leader of the EU, to support a delay to the Brexit process, but with conditions.
CNN quoted spokesman for French President Emmanuel Macron quoted as saying on Tuesday that an extension of up to a year would be "too long."
The spokesperson underlined that the Withdrawal Agreement finalised between May and the EU cannot be renegotiated and the UK should accept "strict conditions" if it was granted a delay to the Brexit process to June 30.
No resolution seems to be in sight for the UK as the British Parliament had earlier rejected a "no-deal Brexit" scenario, besides rejecting May's Brexit deal thrice. Parliamentarians have also rejected four alternative proposals for the UK's exit from the EU.
Unless the EU is in favour of the delay, the UK is due to leave the EU without a deal on April 12. Several business tycoons and economists have warned of chaos in the case of no-deal Brexit.
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