BRUSSELS — It is hard to overestimate the level of exasperation in Brussels with Britain and its wounded prime minister, Theresa May. The jokes are dark, the anger is palpable and the sense of entrapment in a bad version of “Groundhog Day” is bitter. The rest of the European Union wants to move on, to focus on the urgent problems of slowing economic growth, youth unemployment, populism, Russia, China and President Trump.

Most look beyond Britain to the multinational elections for a new European Parliament that begin on May 23. More than usual, these will be fought out on national grounds, with populists of the left and right pressing to overturn the European order.

The whole timetable for Brexit has been predicated on getting it done before the elections, to avoid giving populists across the bloc a helpful campaign topic. It is a particular concern to President Emmanuel Macron of France, who is battling to restore his authority in the face of the protests of the gilets jaunes and the far right.

“There is real frustration with Britain, but there are also real costs to Europe,” said Ian Lesser, director of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels. “Both Donald Trump and the Brexit drama have called out many recessed questions in Europe, big-picture questions: What is the core of Europe? What is the periphery? Where is Europe going, what’s the consensus around the European project, what’s Europe’s role in the world and what is the quality of European leadership?”