Continental media have welcomed the deal settling the EU’s bitter post-Brexit dispute with the UK over Northern Ireland, hoping it may herald a new “adult relationship” that had been unthinkable while the “untrustworthy” Boris Johnson was in Downing Street.
In France, where the president, Emmanuel Macron, hailed “an important decision” that would “preserve the Good Friday agreement and protect our European internal market”, Le Monde called the Windsor framework a significant breakthrough.
“The European Commission would probably not have agreed to these concessions with former prime minister Boris Johnson, in whom it had lost confidence,” the paper said in an article suggesting the two sides were “aiming for new, more peaceful” ties.
Johnson “told untruths about the protocol, claiming there would be no checks on goods crossing the Irish Sea, and challenged it soon after endorsing it”, Le Monde said, adding that while Rishi Sunak might be a Brexiter, he was “hard-working and pragmatic”.
In an editorial on Tuesday, the paper said Sunak’s approach marked “a new page in the chaotic history of Brexit” and a break with Johnson, whose strategy “seemed to have been reduced merely to endless confrontation with the UK’s 27 neighbours”.
Although the game was not yet won for Sunak, who must sell the Windsor framework to unionists and his “Brexit ultras”, the deal represented “a bold bet: to stop endlessly quarrelling with the EU” at a time when UK voters had seen Brexit’s downsides.
It was vital that the EU and the UK respond “with one voice” to crises such as the war in Ukraine and global heating, the paper said, adding that both had every interest in “abandoning post-Brexit guerrilla warfare” for a “peaceful, adult relationship”.
In Germany, Handelsblatt waxed lyrical, saying Monday’s announcement was “like so many breakups: after a period of hurt, blame and teasing, there comes a point when two ex-partners get closer again – and find a new way of dealing with each other”.
However, the paper warned that anyone believing this was “the greatest makeup of the decade” would be disappointed; this was not Britain’s first step “back into the arms of the EU” but only a “repair manual” for the damage Brexit had done to Northern Ireland.
In the Netherlands, De Volkskrant said talks over the protocol had taken so long because “the British knew what they didn’t want, but not what they did. Then Johnson and Liz Truss sent out incompetent negotiators without a mandate.”
Only with the arrival of Sunak, the paper said, did London’s attitude change. Its London correspondent said the prime minister had played it smart. Johnson may have claimed to have “got Brexit done”, but the job had been far from complete.
“That required a leader who does not shy away from difficult dossiers or deliberately set out to rile Brussels, who puts national interest above personal ambition, understands economics and is blessed with a dose of pragmatism.”
Such a leader, the paper said, “turned out to be Sunak … He seems to have achieved a historic success. There is now a deal that Johnson would have signed immediately.” For the time being at least, the former prime minister “has been outplayed”.
Germany’s Welt warned that Sunak was not yet out of the woods. The deal was “a political poker game”, said the paper’s London correspondent, noting that Johnson had “harboured vengeance against Sunak since his ousting in July 2022, when Sunak’s resignation as chancellor triggered the then prime minister’s downfall”.
While the prime minister was unlikely to lose a Commons vote, any large rebellion would “make governing even more difficult for Sunak, who faces multiple challenges – and significantly improve Boris Johnson’s position as a possible Tory saviour”.
Spain’s El País said the deal seemed to have taken the wind out of many Brexiters’ sails. “The tone of the Conservative Eurosceptics and the recalcitrant Northern Ireland has been much calmer and more prudent than anticipated,” the paper said.
