Looks like there will not be ‘hard Brexit’ after all.
Prime Minister Theresa May is being encouraged to either reverse Article 50, and cancel Britain's plan to leave the European Union, or seal a "soft Brexit" deal that is less harsh than what she was pushing for before the snap general election.
May triggered Article 50 in March, which kickstarted the official two-year period where Britain has to negotiate its deal to leave the EU. Britain will leave the EU on March 29, 2019 - unless she calls to reverse it and all other 27-EU member states vote unanimously to allow her to cancel Brexit.
Some of the most powerful people in Europe are now gathering around and telling May in no uncertain terms that Britain is welcome to cancel Brexit. On Tuesday afternoon that was made incredibly clear when two prominent EU politicians made that abundantly clear.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Bloomberg that while it was "up to the British government to take their own decisions," Germany would not stand in the way of the UK returning to the union.
"If they wanted to change their decision, of course, they would find open doors," he added. The door is always open as long as the negotiations on Brexit have not finished.
Shortly afterwards, French President Emmanuel Macron pretty much said the same thing. "Of course the door is always open as long as the negotiations on Brexit have not finished," said Macron in a press conference.
He even said that once Brexit talks start "we need to be collectively clear that it's more difficult to reverse course."
It seems like a big change of tact from what the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said just hours earlier. He warned Britain that it risks crashing out of the EU without a Brexit deal if it continues to "waste" time by delaying talks.
"Next week, it will be three months after the sending of the Article 50 letter. We haven’t negotiated, we haven’t progressed. Thus, we must begin this negotiation. We are ready as soon as the UK itself is ready," said Barnier.
"My preoccupation is that time is passing, it is passing quicker than anyone believes because the subjects we have to deal with are extraordinarily complex. I can’t negotiate with myself."
So the pressure from the EU is either start talks right now - even though May is scrambling to form a minority government - or to just reverse Article 50 altogether. And the pressure from within Britain's parliament, as well people within her own Conservative party, is not any less hard.