EU must do all it can to avoid hard Brexit: Austrian chancellor

FILE PHOTO: Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev (not pictured) attend a news conference in Skopje, Macedonia September 7, 2018. REUTERS/Ognen Teofilovski

PARIS (Reuters) - Britain's European Union partners should do everything in their power to avoid a "hard Brexit" in which London leaves the bloc without a deal, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Monday. "I think that we agree that we have to do everything possible to avoid a hard Brexit," Kurz told reporters in Paris, where he was meeting French President Emmanuel Macron. "It's indispensable that we reach an agreement and that European Union rules be fully maintained," Macron said. (Reporting by Jean-Baptiste Vey; Writing by Laurence Frost; Editing by Brian Love)