In Soccer, Winners Are Clear; in ‘Brexit,’ Not So Much

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/07/world/europe/brexit-germany-europe.html

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BERLIN — In Germany, and across Europe, there are really only two topics of conversation these days: “Brexit” and everything associated with the British vote to leave the European Union; and soccer, a.k.a. football, as the European Championships near an end.

As Britain descends into political crisis after the June 23 referendum, voters there could be forgiven for looking wistfully at the indisputable, if brutal, way in which matters are settled in the tournament.

Germany delivered a particularly nail-biting shootout against Italy in the quarterfinals last Saturday — an 18-shot drama that involved misses by national soccer heroes and, ultimately, a game-winning strike from a new German star, Jonas Hector.

Central Berlin erupted in joyful honking and screaming, while the Italians wept.

Would that British politics had some kind of process to resolve the extraordinary unraveling seen in the London establishment since it became clear that Britons had voted to leave the European Union.

David Cameron, the prime minister who had gambled on the straight in-or-out vote to beat back anti-Europeans threatening to split his Conservative Party, was the first to announce his resignation.

His rival Boris Johnson, who lent a perhaps crucial élan to the “Leave” campaign, then surprisingly dropped out of the race for prime minister, after being betrayed by his supposed ally, Michael Gove, the justice secretary.

All the while, the leadership of the opposition Labour Party, locked in a tug of war between its left wing and its centrists, was dissolving before Britons’ eyes.

When the wave of resignations reached Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party and an instigator of the referendum, German commentators could contain themselves no longer.

Accustomed to process and lovers of order, Germans attach special meaning to “responsibility.” In international affairs, taking responsibility, or verantwortung, is the phrase they use instead of leadership (in part because that word — führung, in German — has unwelcome connotations of the Nazi past).

Germans simply cannot conceive of how Britain’s politicians have behaved. While politicians, diplomats and research analysts in Germany are publicly restrained, commentators enjoy more license to express the general astonishment at what the Berlin tabloid BZ labeled sheer cowardice.

“If one needed final proof of just how irresponsibly the Brexit campaigners have behaved, besotted with themselves, leading their country into chaos and one of the worst crises of its modern history, then here it is,” wrote the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung after Mr. Farage announced his departure.

“Smashing glass — that they can do,” wrote Thorsten Denkler in the liberal Süddeutsche Zeitung, describing Mr. Johnson and Mr. Farage. “But sweeping up the splinters, that’s the job of others.”

In the absence of rules, Mr. Denkler added, “it is hard not to reach for clichés: laugh or cry; after me, the deluge; can always get worse; politics of the kindergarten; a farce. They all fit. And still do not suffice to describe how British politics looks in these post-Brexit days.”

The British vote and the lack of a clear way forward for Europe have serious implications here, of course. Above all, events have accelerated the political timetable. The campaign for national elections in fall 2017 is in full swing.

The conservative bloc in Germany, led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is likely to seek a fourth four-year term, must decide whether to bury sharp internal differences over the one million or so refugees admitted last year in a policy broadly attributed to her.

The Social Democrats, center-left partners in Ms. Merkel’s “grand coalition” government, are alarmed by opinion polls that show their support dipping below 20 percent for the first time.

Both camps are jockeying for position, closely watched in Europe. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the center-left foreign minister, raised eyebrows by suggesting that NATO was “saber-rattling” with maneuvers in Poland.

Wolfgang Schäuble, the influential conservative finance minister, stirred a flurry when he suggested joint French-German weapons production to keep peace more effectively in Europe.

Soccer fans, meanwhile, are fixed on France versus Germany in the semifinal on Thursday. The last time the two teams met, it was for a friendly match in Paris that ended in a 2-0 victory for France on Nov. 13, the night of the terrorist attacks that killed 130 people.