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Alexander Von Schoenburg (pictured) General Editor of Bild, Germany’s best-selling newspaper
Germany is famous for its Christmas: our lights, our markets, our delicious food, even the brightly decorated Christmas trees that we popularized centuries ago.
But, alongside the plethora of new Covid vaccines, the best Christmas present any of us could have hoped for is the new Brexit deal between the European Union and Britain.
And the man the continent should be thankful for is Boris Johnson.
This week, I wrote in my column in the German newspaper Bild that Boris has made world history.
“Often ridiculed by our stubborn elite as a juggler and prankster, he has driven his country out of the EU, without being forced into economic self-mutilation,” I wrote.
For years all the supposedly sensible experts [in Europe] we have been told that Brexit spells doom for Britain. Now they have to eat his words. ‘
Politicians in Germany tend to be efficient but lack shine. Our Chancellor Angela Merkel almost seems to make a conscious effort to appear boring and technocratic, and perhaps this has served her well.
So when someone unconventional shows up on the political scene, there is a tendency to dismiss it as unserious.
Historical
Well, never again. Perhaps it is precisely the most eccentric politicians like Johnson, who are nothing like the boring, rigid men and women in suits who roam most of the corridors of European power, who are most likely to achieve the impossible.
Just because someone has tangled hair, is prone to flare in Latin, and has a somewhat chaotic private life doesn’t mean they can’t be a historically significant statesman.
Today, Europeans of all persuasions know Boris as the man who stood up to the giant that is the European bloc and, against all odds, won the day for his country.
Of course, it was not all due to him: the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, showed grace and integrity in making the French abandon some of their most absurd demands, while Ms Merkel and our Foreign Minister Unrecognized foreign, Heiko Maas, also played a key role in helping finalize the deal.
Britain was also blessed by a brilliant negotiating team led by Lord (David) Frost, who never left Brussels in doubt that he was willing to walk away from the talks.
Those of us who believe that Britain made the right decision by exiting the EU were thrilled to learn how Lord Frost tended to enrage his former opponent, Frenchman Michel Barnier, by referring to the EU as “his organization”.
“ Perhaps it is precisely the most eccentric politicians like Johnson, who are nothing like the boring, rigid men and women in suits who roam most European corridors of power, who are most likely to achieve the impossible ” ‘Alexander Von Schoenburg said.
German EU diplomats told me they would be in trouble every time Frost led Barnier down the wall like that.
However, we must not ignore the fact that this historic agreement could only have come about under a British Prime Minister who refused to be intimidated by Brussels, as, I am afraid to say, his two predecessors were.
Boris’s approach was unique. Surely no prime minister in modern history would have dared to fuel negotiations so deliberately by threatening, as Johnson did in September, to violate international law and renege on the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed last year.
Five former MPs, all survivors, in fact, were outraged at the prospect.
However, that may have been the defining moment that helped unblock the terrible deadlock in Brussels and bring both parties back to the table.
After years of docile and easily intimidated British prime ministers, the Brussels machine realized for the first time that it was dealing with a very serious government in defense of British sovereignty.
Boris knew that most Britons, proud of Westminster as the cradle of parliamentary democracy, would simply not agree to hand over the independence of their Parliament to an assembly elected under dubious regulations in Strasbourg.
Alexander Von Schoenburg said: ‘Boris’s approach was unique. Surely no prime minister in modern history would have dared to fuel negotiations so deliberately by threatening, as Johnson did in September, to violate international law and renege on the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement signed last year. ”
Art
I was there when your Prime Minister arrived in Berlin on a sweltering and hot day in August 2019. With the rest of the German press pack, I was at the Chancellery to see him be received by Ms Merkel.
It was clear that many of my fellow reporters had been told to watch out for setbacks: most were desperate to accuse Boris Johnson of some misstep or to cite some comment that could be called ‘insensitive’ (and it is true that Boris served some of them during his tenure as Foreign Secretary).
However, the moment we all remember to this day was the dexterity with which she treated Ms Merkel. At the press conference that afternoon, Boris said he would do everything possible to achieve an orderly Brexit.
Then he looked at Mrs. Merkel and said in almost accentless German: “Wir schaffen das!” (‘We can do it!’)
Our Chancellor’s smile fell.
That little repetition of his most famous observation made at the height of the refugee crisis five years ago, during which he vowed to find a way to incorporate the large numbers of migrants coming to Europe, hit the mark and the headlines, and made his point clear. perfectly.
“Boris knew that the majority of Britons, proud of Westminster as the cradle of parliamentary democracy, would simply not agree to hand over the independence of their Parliament to an assembly elected under dubious regulations in Strasbourg,” said Alexander Von Schoenburg.
Ms Merkel, it said, had shown that she was willing to act unconventionally by opening her country’s borders. So why not work out an agreement that would create a special bond between Britain and the EU without forcing the former to be bound by the laws of the latter?
To this day, like much of Europe, Germany’s left-wing media deplore Britain’s departure, even as they grudgingly welcome the deal Johnson has negotiated.
Invariably I try to explain that Brexit has always been a question of when, not if.
Boris was right in calling the EU a respectable project created by honorable men who were determined never to wage war with each other again.
But within that noble and unblemished ambition has always been the implicit drive to become more and more integrated and ultimately to blur the internal borders of Europe into one another.
In the end, as Germany’s most respected politician, Wolfgang Schaeuble, president of our Bundestag Parliament, admits today, the urgency is to align fiscal and budgetary policies.
This will centralize the EU to such an extent that not only separate national governments, but even the nations themselves will become a thing of the past, at least in all practical and legal senses.
That is the ultimate meaning of “ever closer union” that the British could not and would never agree to.
Lesson
Whether or not it is correct for Germany, France, Italy and the rest of the EU27 is one thing: but it is totally irreconcilable with the British idea of sovereignty, based on its position as an island and also (in the case of England). as an undefeated geopolitical entity for nearly a millennium.
Part of Boris Johnson’s historic triumph may have been helping the rest of Europe understand all of this.
By improving our knowledge in this way, you may have taught us an important lesson, and you have also given us a kind of Christmas present.
And while I could offer you some of my country’s famous stollen cake in return, in truth, I’ve always preferred your own Christmas pudding.
So next year, I’ll put one of those on my family’s table. And I will be glad that you crossed the border thanks to a successful free trade partnership between your country and mine.
