Thank you and goodbye!

"We already miss you, thank you and goodbye". With a pained expression, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, stood in the middle of the room watching as the British ambassador walked away.

In spite of the time that has elapsed since last year’s referendum, Europe is still stunned by the fact that the UK has slammed the door shut on 44 years of a special partnership with its European neighbours. Theresa May used a conciliatory tone in the House of Commons, but her six-page letter revealed two thinly-veiled threats. The first is the vagueness with which it referred to the three million EU citizens that currently reside in the UK. The second is the reference to security. May wants access to markets in exchange for cooperation on security and counterterrorism, but Merkel wasted no time in putting a stop to such hopes, anticipating intense negotiations.

While London hopes to conduct its exit in parallel with new trade agreements, Germany declared that the divorce will need to come first, before any treaties can be made, and that the negotiations would be long and drawn out.

Yesterday was a rather strange day for the European project. May called for a Great Britain with security, free trade and liberal values, and did so by leaving the Union, which in recent decades has been a guarantor of these very same values. The demagogues who predicted a wonderland with no foreigners will soon see that their dream is impossible in an open economy. The referendum is irreversible and negotiations will be tough. Thank you and goodbye. Now there is no excuse not to push for a hard core capable of calling for a Europe as a privileged space.