Already facing an immigration and European integration crisis that is shattering the country’s democratic foundations in the postwar era as never before, another nightmare looms on the horizon for Germany’s political and business elite: the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union. This explains why an embattled German Chancellor Angela Merkel—fully aware of the enormous political, economic, and geopolitical stakes—has put Berlin’s preparations for the “Brexit-battle” as high as possible on her priority list.
My former colleague Thomas Kielinger expressed the forebodings of many Germans in his column for The Telegraph: “Britain, don’t leave us. We Germans need you in the EU—and we’ll bend over backwards to keep you,” he wrote in December 2015. “For Angela Merkel to lose the British on her watch would be a disaster for a country which has so long regarded it as an indispensable part of Europe.” And he continues: “Looked at from Germany, a British EU-exodus would be a catastrophe robbing us of a brother in arms for free trade and reforms; a valuable co-combatant, too, for the survival of liberalism.”
But some Germans think—as Der Spiegel argued in an editorial recently— enough is enough. “Europe has taken British sensitivities and particularities into account for long enough. The European Union has allowed itself to be blackmailed and made to look like a fool time and again. It was patient to the point of self-denial. For decades England was forgiven for every veto it cast; every special wish was granted.”
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