European Union offers new Brexit deal clarity, won't renegotiate: EU chief executive Juncker

The European Union is willing to give Britain further clarifications on its Brexit deal but will not renegotiate the treaty or its protocol on the Irish border, EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker said on Tuesday (December 11).

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the European Commission president said he was "surprised" at Prime Minister Theresa May's inability to get the package agreed with the EU last month through the British parliament.

Noting that he would meet May in Brussels on Tuesday evening ahead of an EU summit on Thursday and Friday, Juncker said that the deal the EU and the UK achieved was the best and only deal possible.

Juncker repeated that neither side wanted ever to use a "backstop" that would keep Britain in a customs union with the EU in the absence of a better way to avoid extensive border checks between Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland.

May is on a tour of EU capitals to seek last minute changes to the already agreed deal on Britain's withdrawal from the EU in order to push the agreement through British parliament. She was also expected to meet European Council President Donald Tusk later in the day in Brussels.