LONDON (AP) — Austria’s chancellor says there’s room for “better interpretation” of Britain’s withdrawal deal with the European Union but the agreement won’t be renegotiated.
Austria currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said as he arrived on Thursday for a summit of the 28-member bloc’s leaders in Brussels he thinks British Prime Minister Theresa May understands “there will be no new negotiation of the withdrawal agreement.”
Kurz said he thinks remaining EU members will show “some readiness” at the Brussels summit “to maybe find some better explanation about the future relationship” between the EU and Britain.
When reporters raised British lawmakers’ objections to a “backstop” provision in the deal that would keep the U.K. in the EU’s customs union as a default until separate arrangements are made for the border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.
Kurz said: “There’s also some room to have a better interpretation of what we agreed on, but there will be no new deal about the withdrawal agreement.”