Merkel urges EU to stick together after Brexit talks launched

German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the EU’s remaining 27 members on Tuesday to stick together during talks on Britain’s exit from the bloc, which began on Monday.

Merkel also said the talks were important for the future of European integration. Brexit was a setback but election results in the Netherlands and France this year have presented an opportunity for the EU to push ahead, she added.

“The risk of the exit negotiations with Britain is that we do not take adequate care of our own future. Let’s stay together, let’s not divide from each other,” she said with reference to the remaining EU 27 and the 19 eurozone countries.

“This is not just about the exit of Britain, with which we want to remain friends, with which we want to live in a good partnership, but it is also about the future of the EU,” she said at a German industry conference.

“The four freedoms that give us the internal market must not be jeopardized,” she said with reference to the EU’s freedoms of movement of goods, capital, people, and services. “This will be signifi cant at the exit negotiations.”

Merkel said she wanted the talks to be conducted “in a good spirit” and that Britain’s position would become evident in the coming months.

“We will of course implement what Britain pitches, but in a way that the interests of the 27 member states are safeguarded.”

Martin Schulz, the Social Democrat ( SPD) chancellor candidate told the same conference: “The best result of the Brexit negotiations would be – there wouldn’t be a Brexit.”