“Are we ever going to leave the E.U., Prime Minister?” a reporter from the Daily Mail asked Theresa May at a press conference in Brussels, on Thursday night, which was held hours later than expected. May, who looked weary, assured him that Brexit was still on—even though Britons don’t seem to like the options for making it happen, her own Conservative Party has turned on her, and, by the time she spoke, nearly two million people had signed a petition to call it off. (By Friday afternoon, it was more than three million.) Only the timetable had changed. When May arrived in Brussels earlier that day, for meetings with the leaders of the twenty-seven countries remaining in the E.U., the U.K. was on course to crash out on March 29th, after Parliament had twice rejected the deal that she had negotiated with the E.U. to manage that exit, and it hadn’t agreed on an alternative. The E.U. countries had to unanimously agree to any extension, and key leaders, notably Emmanuel Macron, of France, were sounding unsympathetic; they wanted the agony of negotiating Brexit to end. A chaotic, off-the-cliff, No Deal Brexit had hardly ever looked more likely. But now there is a new date, or, rather, two: May 22nd, if Parliament approves the deal next week, to allow all of the necessary paperwork and supporting legislation to be dealt with, and April 12th, a new cliff edge, if it does not.

This is not what May asked for, but she was lucky to get it. With these dates, Europe is telling the U.K. two things: it must, finally, almost three years after the referendum that put Brexit in motion, make a decision. And it must, for once, do so in a way that takes the E.U. and its institutions and aspirations seriously. What determined the new schedule was not Parliament’s needs but the timing of the European parliamentary elections, which are to be held between May 23rd and 26th. British politicians have tended to treat the question of whether the U.K. should take part in those elections, if Brexit isn’t quite complete, as a nuisance or a technicality. For Europeans, it is a matter of the possible disenfranchisement of E.U. citizens (both in the U.K. and in countries that are supposed to be allocated more seats post-Brexit) and the undermining of the legitimacy of the European Parliament and any decisions it sanctions. That legitimacy matters a great deal to them, even if the British see the European Parliament as one of the silly, overstuffed institutions they hate. There were indications that, if the U.K. had been willing to hold the elections, the E.U. would have been sympathetic to a request for a long extension, involving a plan to thoroughly rethink Brexit. Before May arrived in Brussels, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, had, as his spokesman put it, “formally warned” her not to ask for an extension beyond May 22nd otherwise. She asked for June 30th, with no elections. Her theory was that, since the European Parliament wouldn’t be formally seated until July 2nd, it could all be muddled through. But the Europeans are close to being done with British muddling.

Macron’s preference had been to give only a short extension, until May 22nd, and only if Parliament voted yes on the negotiated deal by March 29th. If it voted no, he told reporters, everyone was headed “to a No Deal, for sure.” He added, “This is it—we’re ready.” There are so many things that Macron would rather have the E.U. spend its time on, including the Macron vision for Europe’s future; Brexit is getting in his way.

Macron is a man in a hurry, but his impatience is widely shared. The Brexit breakdown has seen article after article filled with weary, dismayed quotes from European diplomats and politicians, who describe feeling forced to put aside their view of the British as sensible and pragmatic. “Crazier and crazier” is increasingly the common view. The Financial Times reported that it was Chancellor Angela Merkel, of Germany, a truly sensible and pragmatic figure, who talked Macron down. She had spoken, on her way to Brussels, of fighting “until the last hour runs out” to avoid the chaos of No Deal, and she seems to have done her part. The result was the April 12th date, which was chosen because it is the last moment that the U.K. can, legally and practically, schedule European parliamentary elections. (A country can’t, after all, just scramble to set up some ballot boxes the day before; for one thing, candidates have to declare and run.) It is thus truly the U.K.’s last out. If April 12th comes around and European elections haven’t been put in motion, and a deal hasn’t been approved, then all hopes of calling off Brexit—for example, with a second referendum—will have to be put aside. There would be no possible extension beyond the election date. The extension would only amount to an extra two weeks to prepare for No Deal.

One problem for the E.U. was that it seemed increasingly unlikely that May could get her deal through Parliament the third time around—indeed, there were doubts about whether she’d even be allowed to try. On Monday, John Bercow, the Speaker of the House of Commons, had suggested that he would invoke a stricture that prevents the same bill from being presented more than once in the same session of Parliament unless there are substantive changes. May’s government pointed out that there were ways around the rule, such as fortifying the bill with assurances from the E.U. (as had been done the second time it was voted on) or with domestic commitments (for example, to Northern Ireland, which, because of its land border with the Republic of Ireland, is at the crux of disagreements about Brexit), or by getting Parliament to vote on putting the rule aside. In a pinch, this session of Parliament could be formally ended and a new one opened. This would involve dragging in the Queen for the opening, a prospect that would not only mark a low for Brexit but sour the fun of watching the British dress up in their ceremonial garb. Merkel, in her comments earlier this week, said, wryly, that she was “not that familiar with the bylaws of the British Parliament from the seventeenth century.” By most accounts, leaders in Brussels were genuinely thrown on Thursday when they asked May what the plan was if Parliament said no again—and found that she had no coherent answer.

And, even as May met with leaders in Brussels, M.P.s back in the U.K., from all parties, spent much of the day condemning her. A part of the problem was a speech that she’d given the night before, in which she had blamed Parliament for the Brexit deadlock. Some M.P.s suggested that, in so doing, she had encouraged violence against them. Bercow assured them that they were not “traitors.” Feeling is running high. But the frustration in Britain about Brexit had already been turning into anger and a kind of despair.

Earlier this year, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, had said that there was “a special place in Hell” for those who promoted Brexit without a plan to carry it through. At a press conference after the extension was announced, he was asked to expand on that line. He observed only that there was still more room in the underworld. Juncker, who had been standing next to him, called out cheerfully, “Don’t go to hell!” It was unclear to whom that injunction was directed, or who, in the U.K., might still be listening. Both men, at any rate, seemed relieved. There will not be a No Deal next Friday; the U.K. Parliament has been given its charge. For European leaders and institutions, at least, the remaining uncertainty, while serious, now has more of a shape: it is more recognizable, and less British—less unseemly, that is, and less of an embarrassment.