Brexit, viewed from Europe, is looking to many like a particularly British mess. But what if we’re the baddies?

It’s an unpopular idea on this side of the Channel. But the Brexit impasse is not British Prime Minister Theresa May’s fault. Rather, it’s the negotiation process itself that set us up for failure — and the blame for that lies first and foremost with Brussels.

The Brexit talks were badly designed from the start — something that often happens when you put bureaucrats in charge. Critically, the EU refused to discuss the nature of its future relationship with the U.K. unless London first agreed that there would be no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

It was this decision, to include the Irish border question in the first phase of negotiations, that ensured we would never reach the second.

It’s been 30 months since the U.K. triggered Article 50. And we've barely touched on the part of the negotiations devoted to the terms of the future relationship — the part of the discussions that will ultimately decide the status of the border separating the EU and the U.K.

The first phase, ultimately, was about three issues to be decided on principle, not pragmatism.

Will we need a hard border, a light border, practically no border? That depends on the future relationship.

If this process were logical, the status of a small segment of the EU's border with the U.K., distinctive and vital as it may be, would be discussed during talks about the overarching relationship — where big issues such as trade and security will also be hammered out.

But the way the process was designed — to include the Irish border among the three main areas to be negotiated before the U.K. formally leaves the bloc on March 29 — means that both sides had to reach an agreement on a matter they were effectively not allowed to discuss.

There are so many question marks — what will the U.K.’s trading relationship be with the EU after Brexit, for example? — hanging over the Irish border issue. It’s no surprise it is still unresolved.

So why was it included in the first phase of discussions?

Brussels felt that in order to proceed responsibly in the negotiation process, the British needed to start with a firm resolution to honor its commitments. The first phase, ultimately, was about three issues to be decided on principle, not pragmatism. Before the discussion turned to fisheries and cheese and banking services, Brussels decided, moral principle should rule.

Britain, the thinking went, first had to agree to pay the money it was bound to contribute to EU coffers, assure the rights of EU citizens living in Britain and respect the legitimate expectations of all signatories of the Good Friday Agreement that brought Ireland’s violent “Troubles” to an end.

There was also a practical reason Europe wanted to first focus on matters of principle: It increased the likelihood that EU member countries would stick together.

And it worked. Centering the debate around making sure the U.K. would act in good faith helped solidify what turned out to be a remarkably united front among the EU27.

Given the state of the negotiations, however, this might be a decision the EU will come to regret. But Brussels could not have done it without help from the British prime minister.

Failing to push back hard enough, and early enough, on the Irish border question was Theresa May’s tragic mistake — one she will have ample time to rue in the years ahead.

Getting the Irish question out of the first phase of talks would have been in the EU’s interests too.

Instead, she instructed her negotiators to chip away at the EU’s united front by trying to introduce elements from the second phase of negotiations into the first and approaching member countries about aspects of the post-Brexit relationship.

This was a major misstep. Her interest — and very likely the country’s interest as well — lay in slowing things down, not speeding them up.

May needed to wrap up the first act. Take it step by step. By concluding the Withdrawal Agreement in due time — maybe even ahead of schedule — and with her prestige intact, she could then have called for a new election. Having delivered on her promise to take Britain out of the EU, no one would doubt for a minute that she was the right person to lead the U.K. into a new partnership with the bloc.

For that, the prime minister needed only one thing: To remove the Irish question from the scope of the Withdrawal Agreement. She should have invested all of her political capital and the skills of her seasoned diplomats into that specific task.

It would have been an attainable goal. Getting the Irish question out of the first phase of talks would have been in the EU’s interests too.

Why? Because despite its show of unity and insistence Europe will be stronger than ever, the bloc is in a delicate spot of its own.

There are financial risks to Brexit that Brussels stubbornly continues to ignore: A disproportionate percentage of the financial services EU firms need to manage risk has been contracted in the City, and the City will continue to be the place where these services must be procured.

There are political and reputational risks as well. As the negotiation process disintegrates, most of the world will turn to Brussels and ask why, once again, the EU appears unable to reach a speedy and efficient resolution to its problems.

After all, whether the EU is composed of 27 or 28 countries is not something Brussels can shrug away. At present, there is a very high risk that the club will in fact be composed of 27 and a half members. Forever. The bloc can limp along, sure, but it would be seriously weakened.

Luckily, there is an alternative: Go back to the drawing board and declare the Withdrawal Agreement successfully concluded — without the Irish question.

Bruno Maçães, a former Europe minister for Portugal, is a senior adviser at Flint Global in London and a nonresident senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington. His book “The Dawn of Eurasia” was published by Penguin last year.