BRUSSELS (AP) — A British government minister working on the process of taking the country out of the European Union says the government will not seek to extend the two-year period in which its departure must happen.
Britain leaves the EU on March 29, when the EU treaty’s Article 50 governing the procedure times out, but the U.K. parliament still has not endorsed Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal.
May can request an extension, but all 27 other EU countries must agree, and the bloc’s leaders said last month that they would want good reasons to prolong it.
Britain’s minister of state for exiting the EU, Martin Callanan, said in Brussels Tuesday that “Article 50 will not be extended. We are leaving the EU on the 29th of March this year.”
