German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has urged the UK to come back with concrete proposal on solving the Brexit deadlock in its parliament. He tweeted that “So far, unfortunately, the British Parliament has only said what it does not want. What we need now are concrete proposals from the British. The ball is in London, there is not a lot of time left. We #Brexit will also be talking about this in Brussels today. ”
Bisher hat des britische Parlament ja leider nur gesagt, was es nicht will. Was wir jetzt brauchen sind konkrete Vorschläge der Briten. Der Ball liegt in London, viel Zeit bleibt nicht. Besonders über den #Brexit werden wir heute auch in Brüssel reden: https://t.co/4hhIMnKA1y
— Heiko Maas (@HeikoMaas) January 21, 2019
Separately, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said “Personally I’m optimistic that we can avoid a hard Brexit but the German government is of course prepared for all possible scenarios.”
Ireland’s European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said today Ireland wont’ engage in bilateral negotiation with the UK on the Irish border backstop issue. She said, “What we can’t do and what we won’t do, because we have not throughout this entire process, is engage in any kind of bilateral negotiations with the DUP or any other political party in Northern Ireland or the UK. This is a negotiation between the EU and the UK.”