Merkel knows how to stop Polexit. The EU won’t listen

The EU is notoriously bad at learning from its own mistakes, mostly because it is unable to recognise these mistakes in the first place. A notable exception is austerity. There is now a consensus that it was a disaster, which blighted Europe’s economic resilience for a generation.

A mistake the EU has not recognised yet is its role in Brexit: how it negotiated with David Cameron, and how it sided with the second referendum after the election, thus helping to create the political backlash that has destroyed even the faintest hope of a rapprochement with the UK.

In what may be her last European Council, Angela Merkel yesterday spoke truth to power when she warned her fellow leaders not to treat Poland in the same way. There are many reasons to question Merkel’s legacy, but she is right in her scepticism of the rule of law mindset at the heart of European politics right now:

A cascade of lawsuits at the Court of Justice does not constitute a solution to the problem.