A crucial meeting in Germany for Mrs May

We Are On A Log Flume! Chiapas POV Edition! Phantasialand Germany

So as Theresa May heads for Berlin tomorrow for her first foreign trip since becoming Prime Minister, there will be much interest in whether she and Angela Merkel get on together since this relationship will be critical to the way Britain and the EU handlethe consequences of the Brexit vote. The referendum outcome caused shock and dismay in Germany where there is no great desire to see the UK punished for leaving the club but no evident enthusiasm for helping Britain, either.

It would be nice to think Europes two most powerful leaders could strike up a friendship; but it is by no means essential. What is important is that they each respect where the other is coming from. It is too early in Mrs Mays premiership for her to be able to set out in even the sketchiest detail the likely direction of Britains negotiations with the EU. But she will want to lay down some parameters now with Mrs Merkel and with Francois Hollande, whom she is to meet in Paris on Thursday.

The EU Council is to meet in Bratislava on Sept 16 - with Britain absent for the first time - to set out the general negotiating framework for talks. In Berlin and Paris, therefore, Mrs May has her first opportunity of influencing that critical discussion. With characteristic cynicism, Charles de Gaulle, who vetoed Britains first attempts to join the EEC, once said that France had no friends, only interests. But it is also in a nations interests to have friends; and Mrs Mays task is to ensure we keep them.

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/a-crucial-meeting-in-germany-for-mrs-may/