Ireland’s prime minister has called on his European colleagues not to “lose the plot” over the UK’s departure from the EU. Enda Kenny warned that Brexit negotiations risked becoming “quite vicious” because of an antagonistic relationship between London and continental capitals.
In his most outspoken remarks so far on the outcome of the UK’s vote to leave the bloc, Mr Kenny said the EU should not become obsessed with the details of the UK’s exit deal and had to take the long view of its own place in the world.
“There are those around the European table who take a very poor view of the fact that Britain has decided to leave,” Mr Kenny told a public discussion in Dublin on Wednesday. “Europe has got to decide for itself in these [UK exit] negotiations where it wants to be in the next 50 years. If it becomes obsessed with what the UK might or not get, then Europe itself loses the plot.”
It is highly unusual for an Irish prime minister to chide his European counterparts in such a way. But Mr Kenny’s comments reflect growing frustration in Dublin at UK-EU tensions over Brexit and the danger of London and Brussels overlooking the destabilising impact on the island of Ireland.
Dublin is struggling to prevent London and Brussels from edging towards a “hard” Brexit, which could damage the Irish economy if the UK were to leave the single market and the EU customs union. The UK is Ireland’s single biggest trading partner, with €1.2bn crossing the Irish Sea each week.
But pronouncements in recent weeks by both Theresa May, the UK prime minister, and EU leaders such as Angela Merkel, German chancellor, and François Hollande, French president, have heightened expectations of a clear break between London and Brussels.
While the UK insists on control over European immigration and an end to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, EU leaders insist such conditions are incompatible with participating in the single market.
Officials said Mr Kenny’s remarks were also pitched to drive home to UK and European leaders the risk that Brexit would rupture UK-Irish relations. Connections between the two encompass enduring political, business and family ties, as well as a political and diplomatic relationship that has flourished after the end of Northern Ireland’s internal violence in the late 1990s.
Mr Kenny was addressing an audience of political, business and civil society leaders from Northern Ireland and the Republic, who were meeting to try to agree an all-island approach to Brexit. Northern Ireland voted by 56 per cent to 44 per cent to remain in the EU, and the Taoiseach is under pressure from Irish nationalist politicians there and in the Republic to speak for Remain voters in the UK’s exit negotiations.
Mr Kenny warned that negotiations would be “very tough and difficult”. He said “we have no time to waste” because Mrs May could trigger Article 50 of the EU treaties — which kicks off two years of divorce negotiations — sooner than expected. The UK prime minister has said the article would be invoked by the end of March.
Mr Kenny said that Ireland’s relationship with the UK remained good despite Brexit “and we intend to keep it that way”.
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