Top EC bureaucrat has a dream...

The Gruanida to day has an interesting piece on division inside the EU about granting a EK extension until October 31.

G Verhofstadt has some worries:

“Instead of sending May back to London with no extension or ultimately a very short one – a few days, a week – you gave her six months,” Verhofstadt said, after warning of a potential breakdown in EU unity over the issue. “In six months everyone knows, on 31 October, it is too near for a substantial rethink of Brexit and too far away to prompt any action … I fear it will prolong uncertainty and it will import the Brexit mess into the EU and poison the upcoming European election.”

Tusk replied in several registers: 

1. The bureaucratic 

“I want to remind everybody that the UK has the right and obligation to take part in this election as long as it remains in the EU,” Tusk said. “This is not subject to negotiation. I also cannot agreed [sic] to accept a second category of membership. I understand party interests but they cannot overshadow the legal reality.

2. The real politik-ian:

it would give Brussels time to focus on its priorities while allowing Westminster to find a way to break the impasse or allow the British people to “rethink Brexit”...“31 October marks the new deadline for the orderly withdrawal of the UK”, Juncker said. “If the withdrawal agreement hasn’t been ratified by the British parliament by then, then there will be a hard Brexit that we’d like to avoid. Of course the UK can request to revoke article 50, that’s something that’s been made very clear, but that’s not my working hypothesis. And it’s not my working hypothesis either that beyond 31 October we’ll seen an extension again.”

 

3 The identity politician pursuing discrimination through personal attack:

“Mr Verhofstadt was heartily and energetically applauded by Mr Farage. This is a good enough reason for you, Mr Verhofstadt, to deeply rethink and reformulate your argumentation.”

3. And most improbably of all, a M.  Luther King-type mystical experience:

a speech in which he had defended his right to dream of the UK changing its mind...[the link refers to an old article in 2018] “During the European council one of the leaders warned us not to be dreamers, and that we shouldn’t think that Brexit could be reversed. I didn’t respond at the time, but today, in front of you, I would like to say: at this rather difficult moment in our history, we need dreamers and dreams.”