"We are well prepared for the whole procedure," Donald Tusk, the controversial former prime minister of Poland, now serving his second term as chairman of the EU, said on Friday.
Tusk’s bid for re-election to the post he has held since 2014 drew opposition from his home country of Poland. Polish Prime Minister Baeta Szydlo accused Tusk of trying to overthrow her government, the Wall Street Journal reported. Tusk was nonetheless reelected by an overwhelming 27-1 vote on Thursday.
After heated exchanges between Szydlo and her EU colleagues on Thursday in which the Polish PM alleged that the EU was governed by "German diktat," one diplomat said, "she was a different person today [Friday]," expressing a "more constructive" attitude.
"I have no doubt that we will be ready within 48 hours," the chairman said, noting, that the time frame constituted "a proper time to react." Tusk, 59, is the first leader from Central or Eastern Europe to hold the position, the Journal noted.
The UK promised to deliver a formal note by the end of March, at which point the EU will hold a special summit to discuss the divorce with London and chart a new way forward, a conference organized at the wish of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “If the letter comes next week, the special summit will be April 6,” Merkel said at a Friday news conference.
Merkel reiterated Tusk’s view that the EU is "fully prepared" and that she and her EU counterparts will wait "with interest."She asserted that the time of the letter’s arrival "is not of such great significance." A recent poll conducted on behalf of German newspaper Bild am Sonntag found that Merkel’s conservatives have a one-percentage-point lead over the Social Democrats roughly seven months until Germany votes on a new chancellor.
As part of the response, the EU is expected to develop new guidelines issued by the European Council, in addition to a public letter from Tusk replying to UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s conclusive exit from the EU, an economic union that Britain has never fully been onboard with, as evidenced by the lack of adoption of the euro in favor of the British pound.