Hard Brexit getting closer by day – German business association

A hard Brexit is getting closer by the day, Germany’s VDMA engineering association said on Wednesday. The statement comes after the British parliament instructed Prime Minister Theresa May to renegotiate an exit treaty that the EU says it will not change. “Unfortunately even after the vote in the British lower house, there is no new hope of avoiding a disorderly Brexit,” VDMA’s managing director Thilo Brodtmann said, as he urged Britain to make constructive and realistic proposals for a Brexit solution. Removing the backstop, an instrument to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland,  from the withdrawal agreement was a “pipe dream” that would not take negotiations forward, he said, according to Reuters.