[...] Chancellor Angela Merkel, who made accommodating noises after last summer’s referendum, has adopted a tough position on issues such as the UK’s exit bill and the sequencing of negotiations, partly in response to increasing expectations that Britain is seeking a hard Brexit.
“We have no interest in punishing the UK, but we also have no interest in putting European integration in danger over the UK,” Wolfgang Schäuble, the finance minister and Ms Merkel’s close ally, said in a recent FT interview.
“That’s why our priority must be, with a heavy heart, to keep the rest of Europe — without the UK — as close together as possible.”
The hardening mood in the EU’s most powerful state runs counter to hopes in London that Berlin would take a softer line because of pressure from the powerful car lobby, which is concerned about its sales and investments in the UK.
Instead, Germany’s political debate has become more fiercely pro-EU after the election as US president of Donald Trump, an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit, and the emergence of Martin Schulz, the Europhile former president of the European Parliament, as Ms Merkel’s main challenger in federal elections in September.
While the chancellor previously insisted she wished to keep Britain “as close as possible” to the EU, Berlin has now given priority to maintaining the EU’s fragile unity in the face of challenges including migration, eurozone economic tensions and populist attacks on the bloc from French and Polish nationalists.
Berlin backs the European Commission’s insistence that Britain’s exit terms must be negotiated before talks begin on any new relationship with the EU. Ms Merkel’s view is that agreement on exit must be struck in principle, probably in outline, before future arrangements are discussed.
This applies particularly to the UK’s exit bill, which the commission says may total €60bn. The German finance ministry says: “Any Article 50 agreement will have to include the UK’s assurances that it will honour the financial commitments it undertook as an EU member state.”
Heribert Hirte, a legal expert for Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats and member of the Bundestag EU affairs committee, adds that a breakdown over finances would “rule out any chance” of negotiating the future UK-EU relations agreement.
Other German officials and politicians also highlight the obstacles to a mutually satisfactory deal. Detlef Seif, the CDU’s parliamentary Brexit spokesman, says: “We all see it’s going to be difficult. It would be a miracle if we got a good result.”
Norbert Spinrath, Brexit spokesman for Mr Schulz’s Social Democrats, says: “We expect the British to do the honourable thing. If they don’t, the EU can take them to the international courts.”
The only party to welcome Brexit, the rightwing Alternative for Germany, has recently lost ground in polls. However, government and Bundestag representatives argue friendly relations with the UK must be maintained if possible, and so, as one quips, “this unpleasant duty must be done well”. [...]
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