By Elizabeth Piper and Gabriela Baczynska
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Theresa May welcomed the approval by European Union leaders on Friday of a transition period to help business adapt after Brexit, telling the bloc to ride the "new dynamic" in upcoming trade talks.
Endorsing their negotiating stance for trade discussions due to start next month, the 27 other EU leaders at a summit in Brussels confirmed a political, if not yet legal, commitment to let Britain effectively stay in the bloc -- without a vote -- until the end of 2020, 21 months after formal Brexit next March.
The text opens with a note that various interim accords were struck this week, including on the transition, but also a stern warning that "nothing is agreed until everything is agreed" -- a threat to May to avoid "backsliding" on a deal to let Northern Ireland remain regulated by Brussels if no better solution is found to prevent a "hard border" that might disrupt the peace.
May said the deal so far "gives certainty to people and businesses. It gives them the clarity to plan for their future."
Also Read
"I believe there is a new dynamic now in the negotiations," she told reporters. "We will now be sitting down and determining those workable solutions for Northern Ireland but also for our future security partnership and economic partnership."
She was speaking after unexpectedly staying overnight in Brussels because the 28 leaders decided to hold off on a debate about trade policy until after getting clarity from Washington on new U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminium imports. May had planned to return to London, leaving the 27 to discuss Brexit.
A year before Britain quits the world's biggest trading bloc, May said she stayed on to back a collective EU demand for President Donald Trump to grant the EU a permanent exemption from the new tariffs as that mattered for British steelworkers.
There was a reminder of difficulties on trade that Britain might face after Brexit when non-EU member Norway found itself excluded from a temporary exemption Trump granted to the bloc.
IRISH CONUNDRUM
The coup for May comes at the expense of having agree to a "backstop" solution on the Irish border that, if it had to be implemented, could infuriate many of her political allies as it could effectively isolate the Northern Ireland economy from mainland Britain by keeping its regulations in line with the EU.
Both sides say they do not want to go back to border checks between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland - as was the case during decades of violence in the British province.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar highlighted the EU stance that the transition would only become final as part of a broader deal between the bloc and London, which means they have to settle on all outstanding issues - including the Irish border - first. He noted new talks on the border start next week.
"As Ireland ... we're not the ones who are leaving so we are not under time pressure in that regard," Varadkar told reporters. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
"If we can have an agreement on the terms of the backstop or an alternative to the backstop before June, that's something we would very much welcome," Varadkar added.
The Brexit schedule assumes the bloc and London would agree on the divorce deal, the transition and a framework for future trade in time for the 27 EU leaders to endorse it at a summit in October and have it ratified before Brexit on March 29, 2019.
The bloc's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said at the summit that the new deal with Britain "will have to respect the principles and the identity of the EU and our single market".
(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Julia Fioretti; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Alastair Macdonald)
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
