Portugal Says Brexit Agreement Would Be the ‘Desirable Solution’

(Bloomberg) -- Portuguese Economy Minister Manuel Caldeira Cabral said an agreement on Brexit would be the “desirable solution” among the available options for the U.K.’s departure from the European Union.

“Hard Brexit is worse than a soft Brexit and I think of course an agreement would be the desirable solution, otherwise we will have to work on other scenarios,” Cabral said on Friday in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Alix Steel and David Westin in New York. “I don’t think that we are going to have a disaster. The links that connect European countries and the European Union are quite strong, so disentangling all these knots is going to be a hard process.”

The U.K. and the EU are at “an impasse,” British Prime Minister Theresa May said in London on Friday after discussing Brexit with other EU leaders at a summit in Salzburg, Austria, earlier this week. The U.K. is due to leave the bloc in March next year, with or without a deal.

See also: Britain and Europe Are Talking Past Each Other to the Bitter End

As the U.K. and the other 27 EU nations try to find a solution, there will be “a lot of bravado in many moments,” Cabral said. “The U.K. is going to be a partner of the EU for sure because it’s a very important country in Europe.”

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