EU leaders vow to press on with 'no-deal' Brexit plans
BRUSSELS— European Union leaders expressed deep doubts Friday that British Prime Minister Theresa May can live up to her side of their Brexit agreement and they vowed to step up preparations for a potentially-catastrophic "no-deal" scenario.
May canceled a Brexit vote in the UK Parliament this week after it became clear the assembly would reject the deal she concluded with the EU last month. She travelled to Brussels in hope of wringing some concessions from her European partners that would help assuage doubts about the draft divorce agreement back in London.
But EU leaders rejected any attempt to re-negotiate their agreement, a 585-page legal text settling things like the divorce bill and the rights next year of Europeans living in Britain or Britons living in the EU, plus a document laying out their hopes for future relations, which isn't legally binding. They did publish a short text with "assurances" about how the deal would work.
"Very objectively, the signals that we heard yesterday are not especially reassuring about the capacity in Britain to be able to honor the engagement that was undertaken," Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters.
