'It's a Halloween Brexit': European media's verdict on latest delay | Politics | The Guardian 11/4/19 12'08

'It's a Halloween Brexit': European media's

verdict on latest delay
‘Anglo-Saxon festival of witches and pumpkins’ perhaps a fitting date, many papers
note

Theresa May at a news conference after presenting her case for a delay to Brexit. The EU27 agreed a new delay to 31 October –
‘not a very good omen,’ said Libération. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Jon Henley Europe correspondent

Thu 11 Apr 2019 10.29 BST

Halloween might look like a fitting date for the end of the Brexit horror story, European
media said, but Britain was by no means certain to leave the EU even then – and in any case,
the damage had already been done.

“‘Brexit means Brexit’, as Theresa May repeated for so long?” said France’s Libération. “Not
really. You have to ask whether the UK will ever leave. The prime minister won a new delay

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'It's a Halloween Brexit': European media's verdict on latest delay | Politics | The Guardian 11/4/19 12'08

from her EU partners: to 31 October. The date is not a very good omen …”

But whether Britain leaves in the autumn, or before, or not at all, the paper said, the
“increasingly incomprehensible waltz of exit dates shows it has already succeeded in
exporting its byzantine internal battles to Brussels … This summit shattered the united front
that the Europeans had maintained for so long.”

Barcelona’s La Vanguardia said the damage extended some way further than that. The basic
problem remains “the inability of the two main British parties to interpret the decision
taken by the people,” it said, leading to anger and resentment on both sides of the Channel.

“Those who voted for Brexit have reason to feel aggrieved that after three years the UK is
still a member of the EU. But the citizens of the 27 other member states also have reason to
feel aggrieved at the way Brexit is sapping energy that could be spent on the great challenge
of guaranteeing the social wellbeing of Europe’s citizens.”

Italy’s La Stampa was not optimistic for the future. “Whatever the outcome of the last act of
this tragedy, Brexit is destined to mark the future of Europe for at least a generation,” it said.
“Confidence between the UK and the continent has been broken in a lasting way. And
without mutual trust no project, political or commercial, is possible.”

France’s Le Monde agreed that Halloween, “the Anglo-Saxon festival of witches and
pumpkins”, was perhaps a fitting date. But to agree on it, the paper said, the EU27 had to
reach “a hard-fought and typically European compromise”.

A majority of leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, wanted “to put Brexit on ice for a
year, allowing the bloc to get through a politically tricky period”. France’s Emmanuel
Macron, however, wanted a far shorter extension, “to keep maximum pressure on the
British … and put an end to the can-kicking”.

In the end the EU27 split the difference, but “the Franco-German motor was clearly not
functioning”, Le Monde said. And it remained the question “whether Brexit will ever
actually happen … If Britain persists in its refusal to accept the exit deal and its incapacity to
agree on the form of Brexit it wants, the EU, too, will face an impasse.”

Germany’s Die Welt also felt the summit, even if it ended in a classic EU compromise, had
shown Brexit “is no longer a British affair”. Macron’s hard line “aimed to scare the populists
in his own country off similar anti-EU plans,” it said, while Berlin “sees a longer term danger
in a lack of willingness to compromise”.

For Die Zeit, the chosen exit date “could not be more symbolic: on 31 October, when the
Halloween festival of horrors is being celebrated everywhere, Britain is set to leave the EU.
For many, in Britain and on the continent, a truly scary moment …”

“It’s a Halloween Brexit,” echoed the Netherlands’ NRC Handelsblad, arguing that despite
Macron’s warnings the final summit outcome reflected above all “the desire of almost all
member states to avoid a no-deal Brexit – they set virtually no conditions on Britain’s

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'It's a Halloween Brexit': European media's verdict on latest delay | Politics | The Guardian 11/4/19 12'08

continued membership, just a ‘good behaviour review’ in June.”

Macron’s fears that a long extension would allow Britain to disrupt EU proceedings were
overblown, the paper said: “There is little new legislation programmed this year, and
important decisions such as the new president of the commission can by taken by majority
vote.”

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