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Much of continental Europe is hardening its attitude to Brexit in light of the power struggle in London between Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government and its parliamentary opponents.
Politicians, economists and commentators in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Madrid and Paris are losing patience with the British. A growing number now take the view that, no matter how regrettable Brexit is in principle, a “no-deal” outcome may be the least bad of all the unappealing options.
At the same time, European leaders are becoming concerned about the implications for long-term EU-UK relations of the Conservative party’s embrace under Mr Johnson of a militantly pro-Brexit English nationalism.
They fear that the UK, if still under Conservative rule after a snap general election, will aim to diverge from the EU in economic and security matters far more than anyone expected at the time of the 2016 Brexit referendum.
To the extent that such divergence involved tighter bonds with the US, it would seem to bear out Charles de Gaulle’s prediction that, when the chips are down, London will always choose Washington over the European continent.
Charles Michel, the Belgian incoming president of the European Council, which groups EU heads of governments, says he already sees signs that the UK is looking “more and more” to the US in its foreign policy.
A “hard Brexit” would undoubtedly disrupt the EU economy, as highlighted in this report by Belgium’s University of Leuven. However, the view in EU capitals has been unchanged since the 2016 referendum: the damage to the British economy would be worse.
On Friday Marcel Fratzscher, president of DIW Berlin, an influential German think-tank, said (here in German): “It’s better now to have a hard Brexit than to be kept in suspension for another one or two years.” [...]
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