Halloween might look like a fitting date for the end of the Brexit horror story, European media said, but Britain was by no means certain to leave the EU even then – and in any case, the damage had already been done.

“‘Brexit means Brexit’, as Theresa May repeated for so long?” said France’s Libération. “Not really. You have to ask whether the UK will ever leave. The prime minister won a new delay from her EU partners: to 31 October. The date is not a very good omen … ”

But whether Britain leaves in the autumn, or before, or not at all, the paper said, the “increasingly incomprehensible waltz of exit dates shows it has already succeeded in exporting its byzantine internal battles to Brussels … This summit shattered the united front that the Europeans had maintained for so long.”

Barcelona’s La Vanguardia said the damage extended some way further than that. The basic problem remains “the inability of the two main British parties to interpret the decision taken by the people,” it said, leading to anger and resentment on both sides of the Channel.

“Those who voted for Brexit have reason to feel aggrieved that after three years the UK is still a member of the EU. But the citizens of the 27 other member states also have reason to feel aggrieved at the way Brexit is sapping energy that could be spent on the great challenge of guaranteeing the social wellbeing of Europe’s citizens.”

Italy’s La Stampa was not optimistic for the future. “Whatever the outcome of the last act of this tragedy, Brexit is destined to mark the future of Europe for at least a generation,” it said. “Confidence between the UK and the continent has been broken in a lasting way. And without mutual trust no project, political or commercial, is possible.”

France’s Le Monde agreed Halloween, “the Anglo-Saxon festival of witches and pumpkins”, was perhaps a fitting date. But to agree on it, the paper said, the EU27 had to reach “a hard-fought and typically European compromise”.

A majority of leaders, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, wanted “to put Brexit on ice for a year, allowing the bloc to get through a politically tricky period”. France’s Emmanuel Macron, however, wanted a far shorter extension, “to keep maximum pressure on the British … and put an end to the can-kicking”.

In the end, the EU27 split the difference but “the Franco-German motor was clearly not functioning”, Le Monde said. And it remained the question “whether Brexit will ever actually happen … If Britain persists in its refusal to accept the exit deal and its incapacity to agree on the form of Brexit it wants, the EU, too, will face an impasse.”

Germany’s Die Welt also felt the summit, even if it ended in a classic EU compromise, had shown Brexit “is no longer a British affair”. Macron’s hard line “aimed to scare the populists in his own country off similar anti-EU plans,” it said, while Berlin “sees a longer term danger in a lack of willingness to compromise”.

For Die Zeit, the chosen exit date “could not be more symbolic: on 31 October, when the Halloween festival of horrors is being celebrated everywhere, Britain is set to leave the EU. For many, in Britain and on the continent, a truly scary moment … ”

“It’s a Halloween Brexit,” echoed the Netherlands’ NRC Handelsblad, arguing that despite Macron’s warnings the final summit outcome reflected above all “the desire of almost all member states to avoid a no-deal Brexit – they set virtually no conditions on Britain’s continued membership, just a ‘good behaviour review’ in June.”

Macron’s fears that a long extension would allow Britain to disrupt EU proceedings were overblown, the paper said: “There is little new legislation programmed this year, and important decisions such as the new president of the commission can by taken by majority vote.”