Christopher Caldwell

What Angela Merkel really wants (it’s not good news for Dave)

The German Chancellor has rather a lot in common with David Cameron. That's why she can't help him

Angela Merkel is misunderstood. Last winter, when Russia moved to annex Crimea after the overthrow of Ukraine’s government, American officials put it about that the German Chancellor had described Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin as ‘living in another world’ and ‘out of touch with reality’. No evidence has emerged that she ever said any such thing.

Europhiles in the press and in Westminster have now pulled the same trick on David Cameron. The Prime Minister has lately been ruminating about quotas for migrants from certain European Union countries. He complained last month when an unannounced £1.7 billion upward adjustment in Britain’s EU payment turned out to be triple the levy on anyone else. (France and Germany are getting rebates of around a billion euros apiece, and George Osborne hopes to negotiate some sort of delay or reduction for Britain.) Cameron has pushed back a long-planned Europe speech till after the 20 November Rochester by-election, a sign he believes he’ll lose it to Ukip. The consequence was a rather innocuous story in the German newsweekly Der Spiegel which, without quoting Merkel, said that for the first time she considered a British EU exit ‘possible’.

Something got lost in translation. The papers had Merkel ‘ready to cast UK adrift’ (Belfast Telegraph) and telling Cameron he had to ‘accept EU rules or quit’ (Express). And Nigel Farage tweeted: ‘German paper Der Spiegel reports Berlin wants UK EU exit if we try and limit immigration. Still think you can renegotiate, Mr Cameron?’ Cameron was suddenly portrayed as being on no more intimate terms with reality than the Bare-Chested Bolshevik himself — and on the same authority. By now, Frau Merkel must worry that the English-speaking world considers her a terrible gossip.

But the whole story of what Merkel said is implausible.

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