EU not to change exit treaty, a hard brexit likely: Germany's VDMA

A hard Brexit is getting closer by the day, Germany's VDMA engineering association said on Wednesday 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 Managing Director Thilo Brodtmann said, urging Britain to make constructive and realistic proposals for a Brexit solution. He said removing the backstop - an instrument to prevent a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland - from the withdrawal agreement was a "pipe dream" that would not take negotiations forward.