BRUSSELS — European leaders on Sunday signed off on their split from Britain, approving a deal that sets out the terms of their divorce after more than two years of angry sniping between London and the rest of Europe.
The agreement will now pass to the British Parliament for an approval vote whose outcome is uncertain, and the plan could yet fall apart before Britain officially exits the European Union, with or without a deal, on March 29. But it was still a momentous occasion in Britain’s four-decade-long membership in the European club and its torturous two-year effort to depart it.
The deal will almost certainly come with steep costs for both sides, and some E.U. leaders said they felt Sunday’s deal was a tragedy. The deal, approved unanimously by the remaining 27 E.U. leaders, would leave Britain in legal limbo — obligated to follow most E.U. rules but no longer a member — until the end of 2020, as leaders haggle over the relationship to come.
“Nobody is winning. We are all losing because of the U.K. leaving,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on his way into the meeting, where leaders took a somber closed-door decision to move the plan forward.
Under the terms of the deal, Britain will face a $50 billion bill to pay its financial commitments on its way out the door. It will be tied to E.U. laws and regulations for years in some areas, and its ability to negotiate its own trade deals — a key demand of the Brexiteers who led a successful rebellion against the established order in 2016 — could be tightly limited. But it will no longer be obligated to allow E.U. citizens to live and work within its borders, and British Prime Minister Theresa May has sought to promote that as a major win.
British and E.U. negotiators will still have to work out the terms of their future relationship, and although a 26-page declaration also approved Sunday set out some of the guidelines, much remained unresolved, including Britain’s freedom to control large parts of its own economy.
Arriving at this point in the divorce has been a struggle: 17 months of fraught negotiation, marked by nonstop bickering within May’s own leadership team, including a string of high-profile resignations from her cabinet.
May’s headaches are far from over. Her limits as vote-wrangler will be tested in her own Parliament, where pro-Brexit lawmakers have hammered the plan as failing to break decisively enough from Brussels and pro-E.U. forces have condemned it as a self-inflicted wound that hurts British voters.
According to the British press, as many as 90 lawmakers of May's own Conservative Party have said they plan to vote against it, alongside members of the opposition Labour Party.
Asked on a BBC radio call-in show on Saturday if there was a “Plan B” in place if the British Parliament rejects her withdrawal deal, May said no.
“I believe if we were to go back to the European Union and say, ‘Well, people didn’t like that deal, can we have another one?’ I don’t think they’re going to come to us and say, ‘We’ll give you a better deal.’”
The plan seeks to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland, which is remaining in the E.U., and Northern Ireland, which will depart. It also seeks to prevent an internal split between Northern Ireland and the the rest of the United Kingdom. To do so, the two sides agreed that if they fail to come up with a better plan before the end of Britain’s transition period, London would remain locked inside the European customs union, obligated to respect most E.U. regulations on goods that would pass between the two sides, including tariffs with the rest of the world.
In addition to the divorce deal, May and her European counterparts approved a 36-page political declaration on the future relationship between the two partners. Unlike the withdrawal agreement, which will be legally binding after it is approved by British and European parliaments, the political document is loosely worded and aspirational, an outline for future talks, which will likely take years to complete. It contains a list of hoped-for outcomes, on trade, customs inspections, tariffs, fisheries rights, aviation, and the ability of citizens to visit and live in the other’s territory.
Even the vague aspirations, however, are likely to disappoint British business interests. For example, while May has long sought to replicate the “frictionless” trade that exists today between members of the European Union, a post-Brexit Britain will face “separate markets and distinct legal orders,” according to the political declaration, while aligning with E.U. rules. London’s financial center, one of the largest in the world, will also see its access to Europe diminished when it surrenders its “passport” rights to move money.
Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and lead campaigner for Brexit, said on Saturday that Britain was “on the verge of a historic blunder.” He said May’s withdrawal deal surrenders too much power to Brussels.
What will happen to the withdrawal agreement if it is voted down by the British Parliament is unclear. Negotiators could try to return to Brussels to amend the deal, but European leaders have said that they have little room to improve it and that there is nothing more to talk about. They advised British lawmakers to take what is on the table.
“Leaving the E.U. is not a moment for jubilation but a moment of deep sadness, and we make everything possible in order to have this divorce being as smooth as possible,” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said as he entered the meeting. “But there are no smooth divorces."
European leaders have largely held united through the negotiations, vowing that if Britain leaves their club, it must no longer benefit from club benefits. Leaders generally dislike the departure but now want to pin down the deal to free them to focus on other, more pressing problems such as populism, struggling economies and Russia.
Their main goal on Sunday appeared to be to try to move on from the bitter breakup.
“It is neither a day for us to cheer nor a day of mourning,” French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday. “It is the choice of a sovereign people.”
Quentin Ariès contributed to this report.
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