As yet another crucial vote on the terms of the UK’s exit from the EU deal is kicked forwards by a further two weeks, Portugal’s PM António Costa has admitted that Brexit poses “a big problem for the EU”.
Using the well-worn Portuguese saying: “Hope is the last thing to die”, Costa told journalists at Sharm-el-Sheikh (where Theresa May had the opportunity of meeting world leaders during the EU-Arab League Summit) that he hopes a deal is agreed in time.
“It’s not worth trying to belittle the idea that we can have Brexit without it being a problem”, he said, stressing nonetheless in the next breath that throughout the so-called negotiations’ process “the EU has not divided, and has maintained its activity”.
Within hours of Costa’s message to the Portuguese press group however papers in UK were suggesting the next development will involve suspending Brexit for anything from two months to ‘another two years’.
