Brexit deal greeted with relief by European media

The Guardian ^ | 25 December 2020 | Emma Graham-Harrison, Philip Oltermann in Berlin and Ashifa Kassam in Madrid

[Cronos]

Across Europe’s media there was relief that a deal had finally been reached,

Italy’s Corriere della Sera described it as “a Christmas present for everyone”. At a difficult moment, in a complicated world, there is no room for hatred between friends, wrote Beppe Severgnini....

France’s Le Monde saw the deal as a political victory for Johnson, who it described as an “unsinkable political machine”, if not the unqualified triumph for Britain that he claimed to have pulled off.

“His hair is more chaotic than ever, he looks wild at every appearance and seems permanently overwhelmed by events,” the paper said. “But by pulling off a trade deal with the European Union on December 24th, the British prime minister has once again shown the usefulness of pretending to be a madman.”

Johnson’s triumphalist presentation of the agreement was noted by El País, which noted that he was already bracing for criticism from those who thought the deal went too far, and others worried it did not go far enough.

“Johnson’s propagandistic efforts to extol his results can be explained not only by his character and by what is personally at stake for him – which is approximately everything – but also because he needs to break the resistance of the ultra groups (ultra-Brexiteers) and to plug territorial criticisms such as those already unleashed from Scotland.”

[a fool in paradise]

>>“His hair is more chaotic than ever, he looks wild at every appearance and seems permanently overwhelmed by events,” the paper said. “But by pulling off a trade deal with the European Union on December 24th, the British prime minister has once again shown the usefulness of pretending to be a madman.”

Sounds like they are talking about Trump, except they would never praise any agreement he consented to.

[Gene Eric]

The media’s happy, I’m not happy.