At a summit seemingly riddled with landmines, the EU’s leaders tiptoed through.
There was no breakthrough on Brexit, but there was also no new blow-up — for now.
Tempers remained calm in a brief, potentially combative discussion about national budgets, especially Italy’s — for the moment.
And amid saber-rattling from Washington, Brussels insisted there would be no new trade war — at least not yet.
Still, disasters forestalled are not disasters averted, and the European Union cannot claim to have solved anything at its October 2018 summit.
The negotiations with Britain remain at an impasse and could still fail. Leaders did not resolve their long-standing disagreements on migration policy. They were forced to acknowledge that efforts to overhaul the eurozone are dragging along far too slowly. And the scrutiny of Italy’s budget might well yield a full-blown fight with Rome, which seems intent on defying common fiscal guidelines by increasing its deficit.
But amid the avalanche of issues that seem to be forcing a summit a month, European Council President Donald Tusk noted that leaders were feeling a lot better at the close of their gathering in Brussels than they did after a meltdown over Brexit at the September get-together in Salzburg, Austria.
“What I can say today is we are in a much better mood than after Salzburg,” Tusk said at the closing news conference on Thursday afternoon. More specifically he was addressing Brexit, but the sentiment seemed to apply across the board. “What I feel today is that we are closer to a final solution and the deal,” he said. “It’s maybe more emotional impression than a rational one but, as you know, emotions matter in politics.”
No doubt.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May, who brusquely restated her unbending red lines in Salzburg, this time told her counterparts that she believes a Brexit deal is within reach. She also said that the U.K. is open to considering a longer transition period between its exit from the EU and the start of a new long-term trade arrangement between London and Brussels.
Experts on the complex legal and economic issues of Brexit said that a longer transition would not necessarily do anything to break the impasse between the U.K. and the EU over the thorny challenge of avoiding the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, largely because there is no guarantee whatsoever that a future trade deal will include provisions making such a boundary unnecessary.
And yet, the overall mood music was positive, with officials repeatedly pointing to their success in completing sections of the withdrawal treaty on Gibraltar and on U.K. military bases in Cyprus — small but admittedly complicated matters.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel struck a philosophical note to explain why a final Brexit deal could still not be discerned.
“I’ve always said Brexit is like squaring a circle — that means until we have a solution, nobody will be able to explain how it will look,” Merkel told reporters.
Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said he believed the longer transition would be useful. “It’s not the best idea,” Juncker said. “But I think this is giving us some room to prepare the future relation in the best way possible and I am convinced that … we’ll find a deal with Britain.”
He and others immediately pledged to keep working toward an agreement. “I stand ready to resume negotiations,” the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, declared on Twitter.
‘Italy is Italy’
Negotiations also may be needed soon between Brussels and Rome over Italy’s budget, but Juncker went out of his way to make clear that there is no fight at the moment. He even poked fun at himself by turning a phrase he had once used to suggest that France is entitled to special exceptions to the EU’s budget rules.
Explaining the EU’s past flexibility on Italian budget plans, Juncker said: “We were very kind, gentle, positive when it came to Italy, because Italy is Italy.”
For the moment, EU governments can leave the battle over Italy’s budget to the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. A letter from the Commission to the Italian government, released soon after the summit concluded, made clear Brussels regards the populist administration’s blueprint with “serious concern.”
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte took the lead among national leaders in expressing worries about the Italian financial blueprint, taking care to tweet out his message as well as conveying it personally to his Italian counterpart, Giuseppe Conte.
But in their general approach to Italy, leaders seemed to have heeded the words of Mario Draghi, the Italian boss of the European Central Bank, who last week advised everyone involved to “calm down with the tone.”
Conte said he has encountered plenty of goodwill from fellow EU leaders at the summit.
“I have found European partners obviously very respectful,” he told reporters. “I have also received much appreciation because I believe it’s the first time they have understood that in Italy we’re turning things upside down — we approved an anti-corruption law, we have approved a law on fiscal simplification,” he said, also citing other changes his government was undertaking.
On eurozone reform, leaders conceded after a report from the Eurogroup president, Mário Centeno, that they have not made much headway even on issues where there is broad agreement, like beefing up the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).
“We agreed that we need to accelerate the technical work,” Tusk said. “We want to get an agreement on the banking union and the ESM in December.”
Asked about new U.S. complaints that negotiations over trade disagreements are not progressing fast enough, Juncker insisted that a deal he made with U.S. President Donald Trump during a visit to Washington would be upheld.
“What the two of us committed to will be done,” he said.
The trade issue was certain to get additional attention as the next Brussels summit rolled into view — an EU-Asia meeting on Thursday evening and Friday — given China’s role at the center of many trade fights, including between Beijing and Washington.
Jacopo Barigazzi, Maïa de la Baume, Lili Bayer, Florian Eder, Eline Schaart, Paul Taylor and Eddy Wax contributed reporting.