{"id":301560,"date":"2017-03-31T15:33:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T14:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/triggering-of-brexit-intensifies-national-tensions-in-europe\/"},"modified":"2017-03-31T15:33:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T14:33:06","slug":"triggering-of-brexit-intensifies-national-tensions-in-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/triggering-of-brexit-intensifies-national-tensions-in-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Triggering of Brexit intensifies national tensions in Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Triggering of Brexit intensifies national tensions in Europe<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    Robert Stevens<br \/>\n    <br \/>31 March 2017<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>The European Union (EU) and representatives of the continent\u2019s major powers reacted with undisguised hostility to Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s triggering the Article 50 process for the UK to exit the EU.<\/p>\n<p>The most significant expression of tensions came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who responded&#8211;within hours of Brexit being triggered&#8211;by rejecting one of the main demands outlined by May in her Article 50 letter to European Council head, Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n<p>May\u2019s six-page letter stated that the Conservative government believed it was \u201cnecessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside those of our withdrawal from the European Union.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Merkel is considered one of the more conciliatory voices regarding Brexit among Europe\u2019s ruling elite, given Germany\u2019s shared desire for austerity and free market liberalism from which both major imperialist powers have long benefited. But shared support for economic liberalism was trumped by the need to maintain a united front of the EU powers to prevent Brexit being a source of political contagion spurring on nationalist sentiment across the continent. Merkel warned, \u201cThe negotiations [on the UK\u2019s EU exit] must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship. We must deal with many rights and obligations that have been linked to membership. Only then, later, can we talk about our future relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Outgoing French President Francois Hollande issued a statement in agreement with Merkel. His office said, \u201cThe President indicated that the talks must at first be about the terms of withdrawal, dealing especially with citizens\u2019 rights and obligations resulting from the commitments made by the&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2017\/03\/31\/brex-m31.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Triggering of Brexit intensifies national tensions in Europe By Robert Stevens 31 March 2017 The European Union (EU) and representatives of the continent\u2019s major powers reacted with undisguised hostility to Prime Minister Theresa May\u2019s triggering the Article 50 process for the UK to exit the EU. The most significant expression of tensions came from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-301560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301560\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}