Merkel and Brexit

It seems that German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the only strong political and economic leader inside the European Union that can put an end to the Britain’s schemes to gain concessions from the bloc under Theresa May.

When British efforts to secure concessions from the European Union hit a wall, they came up with the Brexit plan to use it as a leverage for gaining what they want, something that the ensuing course of events within the EU shows it has backfired.

With only six months left to the official withdrawal of Britain from the EU, the two recent summits of European Union leaders in Brussels and Salzburg did not produce, much to the EU leaders’ chagrin, any deal for how the bloc and the UK would cooperate with each other after Brexit.

Now it seems that Angela Merkel is the only European leader who can talk about a deal with the UK without being worried.

While Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, believes that “a no-deal Brexit” would be disastrous, Merkel maintains that Britain’s exit from the EU, either with a deal or without a deal, would not cause any serious harm and that the bloc can easily cope with all possible scenarios of Brexit.

At the recent European Council in Brussels, Merkel said that 90 percent of the agreement had been reached so far. She said that a major point of contention was the issue of how the border between Ireland, an EU member, and Northern Ireland, still part of Britain, should be regulated.

Theresa May is the weakest UK Prime Minister in the country’s modern history and is trying to pull off some sort of a deal with the EU.

Can’t have your cake and eat it

The problem is that the UK is reluctant to accept some economic and financial regulations when leaving the bloc and at the same time wants to keep working with the Union and be a non-eu member in economic international arena, like the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and does business with countries like Japan, Australia, Canada and Malaysia.

Britain, however, can remain the US top trade partner after Brexit and enjoy the benefits of having such a relation.

That relation would help the UK to revive its political and economic power vis-à-vis Germany and the European Union, something that will be definitely welcomed by the US President Donald Trump – who has always sought the disintegration of the EU.

Britain is set to leave the European Union on March 29, 2019. With Merkel’s tough stances as well as lack of EU’S flexibility, Britain is left with only three options, all of which indicate that Theresa May would emerge as a loser to Angela Merkel.

The first choice is a Brexit with a deal, the second is a no-deal Brexit and the third is holding another referendum, which would probably lead to Britain’s return to the European Union.

*Hossein Ziaee is a freelance journalist.