Divorce becomes clearer. The European Parliament ratified this Wednesday by a large majority the Brexit treaty fixing the modalities of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
MEPs agreed with 621 votes in favor, 49 voted against, and 13 abstained.
"We will always love you and we will never be far", promised European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to British MEPs during a pre-election debate. "We will miss you," she said.
It was the last major step in ratifying the agreement, three and a half years after the Brexit referendum in the UK.
🇬🇧 #Brexit deal approved by 621/049/013 https://t.co/uuY5rGAQjj pic.twitter.com/2KxQEqRpQq
- EP PressService (@EuroParlPress) January 29, 2020The United Kingdom will thus become the first member country to leave the EU on January 31 at 11 p.m. (London time, i.e. midnight in France).
The bubbling Boris Johnson therefore succeeded where the previous tenant of 10 Downing Street, Theresa May, broke his teeth.
"A failure of the Union"
"To be clear, today's vote is not for or against Brexit, it is a vote for an orderly Brexit, against a savage Brexit," said Belgian Guy Verhofstadt, rapporteur for the file. But Brexit is "also a failure of the Union," he conceded.
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The debate was the occasion for a final coup for the leader of the Brexit Party Nigel Farage: a virulent speech, which ended with all the members of the party brandishing, standing, a little Union Jack. This earned them a call to order from the Deputy Speaker.
After 25 years of fighting for independence, this is my final contribution in the European Parliament.
We were told to leave with our British flags, and that's exactly what we did. pic.twitter.com/cBfycWfsN7
Earlier, Nigel Farage had given a triumphant press conference in which he compared Brexit to the break-up of Henry VIII with the Pope of Rome in 1534.
A win for Johnson
The promulgation of the text, which translates into British law the 535-page divorce agreement concluded in October, marks a great victory for the conservative leader, who came to power in July 2019 by posing as the savior of Brexit.
If the UK is about to embark on a new chapter in its history, it will still face daunting challenges. Negotiations are already shaping up to be complex with the EU, its main trading partner.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Wednesday that the EU was "in the dark" with the upcoming negotiations and that "the hardest" was ahead of it.