EU's Tusk said no more Brexit negotiations

European Council President Donald Tusk said on Friday (December 14) he had no mandate to reopen Brexit negotiations with Britain, while the head of the bloc's executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, said the EU stood ready to start discussions on the future relationship as soon as the text is ratified.

Tusk and Juncker were speaking at a news conference after two days of talks at an EU summit that were dominated by the issue of Brexit and saw the other 27 national leaders of the bloc offer British prime Minister Theresa May only vague assurances over their tentative Brexit deal.

May, who on Wednesday survived a plot in her party to oust her, rejected EU criticism of "nebulous" demands from a divided British political system and asked EU leaders for political and legal assurances to help her win parliament around to her deal.

Commenting on British media reports describing the EU leaders' response to May's plea as a 'humiliation,' Tusk said EU leaders treated the prime minister with 'a much greater empathy and respect than some British MPs ,' while Juncker said they had 'the highest respect' for her.

European Union leaders on Friday also called for urgent action to combat fake news on the Internet, saying more needed to be done to safeguard next year's EU election against disinformation. Juncker said he had warned EU leaders around the table that some of them were spreading fake news themselves, naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as one of them.