BRUSSELS,
Belgium
The
European Parliament gave final approval to Britain’s divorce from the European
Union on Wednesday, paving the way for the country to quit the bloc on Friday
after nearly half a century and delivering a major setback for European integration.
 |
| Members of the European Parliament react after voting on the Brexit deal during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium January 29, 2020. |
After an emotional debate during which several
speakers shed tears, EU lawmakers voted 621 for and 49 against the Brexit
agreement sealed between Britain and the 27 other member states last October,
more than three years since Britons voted out.
Thirteen lawmakers abstained and the chamber then
broke into a rendition of Auld Lang Syne, a traditional Scottish folk song of
farewell. Britain’s 73 departing EU lawmakers headed for an “Au Revoir” party
in the EU chamber after the vote.
Earlier on Wednesday, Britain’s ambassador to the
EU handed documents formalising Brexit to a senior EU official. Against a
backdrop of British and EU flags at the bloc’s Brussels headquarters, Tim
Barrow, smiling, passed over a dark blue leather file embossed with the emblem of
the United Kingdom.
After protracted divorce talks, Britain will leave
the club it joined in 1973 at midnight Brussels time (2300 GMT) on Friday, when
British flags will be removed from EU offices and the EU flag lowered on the
British premises there.
With a status-quo transition period running only
until year-end, fresh talks - covering everything from trade to security - will
begin soon on a new relationship.
“We are considering a zero-tariff, zero-quotas free
trade agreement. But the precondition is that EU and British businesses
continue to compete on a level playing field. We will certainly not expose our
companies to unfair competition,” European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen
told the chamber.
Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier told envoys of
the remaining 27 members earlier on Wednesday that a loose association
agreement like the EU has with Ukraine should serve as the basis for new
relations, diplomatic sources said.
“We will not give ground on issues that are
important to us,” Barnier said, according to sources briefed on the closed-door
meeting.
On his last working day as a member of the European
Parliament, leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage told reporters there was “no
going back” once the UK leaves.
“The UK didn’t fit, we’d be better off out,” he
said, describing euroscepticism as a settled view in the UK, where “Leave” won
the 2016 referendum by a narrow 52 to 48 percent margin.
He said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
promised him there would be no so-called ‘level playing field’ clauses on fair
competition in the new EU-UK deal, highlighting a major point of contention
with the bloc in the coming talks.
As Farage beamed, his Brexit Party lawmakers waved
goodbye to the chamber with mini Union Jack flags and chanted “Hurray!”, but
their Socialist compatriot Jude Kirton-Darling choked back tears.
“It’s probably the saddest day of my life so far.
Brexit is something that attacks the very foundation of our identity,” said
Kirton-Darling, who plans to stay in Brussels with her Belgian husband.
Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal EU lawmaker from Belgium
and a staunch europhile, lamented Brexit as a historic debacle: “It’s sad to
see a country leaving that twice liberated us, twice gave its blood to liberate
Europe.”
As a new reality dawns on Europe from Saturday, the
UK’s Permanent Representation to the EU, or UKRep, will become a foreign
mission - already dubbed “UKmissEU” by some. – Reuters
No comments:
Post a Comment