Quote of the day 15th April 2019
"Brussels has taught us a lesson in how not to deal with a member state that wants to leave. The problem is not on the British side. The problem is on the EU side.”
This quote is from Günter Verheugen, former German EU commissioner, as reported here.
He told ARD’s Anne Will show in Berlin that the EU’s negotiating team had made a strategic misjudgement, missed the larger issues at stake and should not try to dictate terms fundamentally unacceptable to London:
“We’re not losing a member state, we’re losing the weight of 20 member states. We therefore have an interest that we remain the closest possible allies.”
I am not holding my breath waiting for the EU to change it's negotiating strategy because I don't think they will, but the same article reports that a number of influential German economists are concerned that the EU's negotiating strategy for Brexit as "gone off the rails" in the words of Professor Gabriel Felbermayr, head of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, who also called for a change in the EU's strategy "before it does any more harm to long-term relations with Britain."
Professor Felbermayr told the Daily Telegraph that any deal with Britain that is perceived as coercive will fall apart. “If it is going to have any credibility, it must offer mutual benefits,” he said.
He added that the EU is playing a “very dangerous game.”
This quote is from Günter Verheugen, former German EU commissioner, as reported here.
He told ARD’s Anne Will show in Berlin that the EU’s negotiating team had made a strategic misjudgement, missed the larger issues at stake and should not try to dictate terms fundamentally unacceptable to London:
“We’re not losing a member state, we’re losing the weight of 20 member states. We therefore have an interest that we remain the closest possible allies.”
I am not holding my breath waiting for the EU to change it's negotiating strategy because I don't think they will, but the same article reports that a number of influential German economists are concerned that the EU's negotiating strategy for Brexit as "gone off the rails" in the words of Professor Gabriel Felbermayr, head of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, who also called for a change in the EU's strategy "before it does any more harm to long-term relations with Britain."
Professor Felbermayr told the Daily Telegraph that any deal with Britain that is perceived as coercive will fall apart. “If it is going to have any credibility, it must offer mutual benefits,” he said.
He added that the EU is playing a “very dangerous game.”
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