Brussels - British Prime Minister Theresa May will seek
concessions from the EU on her Brexit deal when she holds talks in
Brussels on Thursday, despite the bloc's repeated insistence it is
not open to renegotiation.
British lawmakers remain deadlocked over Brexit, and many continue to
oppose the withdrawal agreement that May inked with the EU member
states in December after 20 months of negotiations.
Fears are growing that Britain could crash out of the EU on the
scheduled March 29 exit date without a deal to ease the withdrawal
after decades of membership.
The talks in Brussels were expected to be dominated by the stalemate
over the border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which
is in the United Kingdom.
May is seeking changes to the "backstop" protocol in the withdrawal
agreement that is designed to guarantee that the Irish border remain
open, in order to win parliamentary approval of the Brexit deal.
Some Brexit supporters fear the backstop could leave Britain tied too
closely to the EU, by placing Northern Ireland under slightly
different and perhaps indefinite arrangements from the rest of the
United Kingdom.
"The UK's objective is to find a way to guarantee we cannot, and will
not, be trapped in the backstop," a government source said of
Thursday's talks.
"The prime minister is open to different ways to achieve this, but is
clear it must be legally binding and therefore [she] will require
changes to the withdrawal agreement," the source said, adding that
"securing such changes will not be easy."