European Union leaders should be patient with Britain over its struggle to find majority support for a deal to exit the EU, the chairman of EU leaders Donald Tusk said on Tuesday.
Tusk was reacting to Prime Minister Theresa May who said she would ask the EU for an extension to Brexit negotiations and would sit down with opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an attempt to break the impasse in parliament.
"Even if, after today, we don’t know what the end result will be, let us be patient," Tusk said on Twitter.
May said the extension she would seek should be "as short as possible" without specifying any period, and added the extension should end when a deal is passed.
She did not make clear what kind of solution she would seek together with Corbyn, who supports the option of Britain staying in a customs union with the EU -- something May's party rejects.
EU officials, who asked not to be identified, said it was not clear what compromise May was trying to achieve and that was why Tusk was calling for patience.
But the patience had its time limit, the EU officials said, because on April 10th EU leaders will meet in Brussels for a summit to decide on Brexit. April 12th has already been set as the date on which Britain will leave the EU without a deal unless a request for an extension is approved by EU leaders.
Autor: gf / Źródło: TVN24 News in English, Reuters