Newsweek International Magazine 8th February 2019 Back Issue

HOW GERMANY'S MERKEL DIVIDED THE EU BY TRYING TO SAVE IT
“Faced with disaster, Theresa May has a plan but no strategy — the Churchillian maxim ‘Keep buggering on.’” If there’s one European leader who can feel May’s pain, it’s German Prime minister Angela Merkel. Both are strong female leaders who have championed the value of a united Europe under the auspices of the EU. The idea for an economic partnership among European nations sprang from the horrors of World War II, based on the notion that countries that trade together were less likely to go to war with one another, as they had for centuries in Europe. Since then, internal borders have come down between the EU’s twenty eight member states, allowing people and goods to move freely as if these states were one country. The EU also has grown into a political partnership, with its own Parliament in Brussels that sets regulations for all its members. And the continent has been largely at peace. Ironically, it is Merkel and May — two staunch defenders of European integration — who may be responsible for what many fear is its looming disintegration.