STAY OR GO?
EUROPEAN LEADERS HAVE NO PLAN FOR A BREXIT VOTE,
PARIS• If you’ re waiting for Angela Merkel and François Hollande to produce a post-Brexit master plan for Europe, don’t hold your breath.
The German and French leaders do plan a show of unity in the event of a U. K. vote to quit the European Union, but it’s likely to be confined to a restatement of shared aims and values, according to people familiar with the planning.
For all the reassurances of recent days that the EU is prepared for the prospect of a so-called Brexit, there is no detailed program ready to be wheeled out on Friday, one senior government official said. Another denied the existence of any blueprint in a drawer, while a third said there is no guarantee other EU states would sign up to a German-French idea of unity in any case.
In fact, several officials said a Brexit risks sharpening differences between Europe’ s two main drivers. Holland e’ s favoured response—to push to strengthen the euro area with an expansion of shared risks — would run into immediate opposition in Berlin. Germany would rather the reaction was EU-wide.
“They don’t have the same priorities,” former Italian prime minister Enrico Letta said. “Germany is dealing with refugees and France with its economy.” That raises the risk that “nothing major will come out” of common efforts to re- establish EU unity until Germany has held general elections due in the fall of 2017, he said.
The diverging views at Europe’s core suggest investors and Europe’s allies may fail to get the quick, forceful reassurances needed to avert political contagion and ease market turmoil. “It’s not like we’ve been waiting without giving it a thought,” French government spokesman Stéphane Le Foll said.
Merkel and Hollande first discussed a joint response over dinner in February at a restaurant in Strasbourg, the French city across the Rhine river from Germany. They followed up in May at Verdun, France, where they toured a First World War cemetery, a solemn moment meant to underscore how the push to unite Europe has turned former enemies into allies. It was there they discussed the crises at Europe’s periphery, to the south and east in Syria and Ukraine, and in the U.K. to the north.