Angela Merkel has said that “we have to be successful” in finding a way to avoid a crash Brexit.
And she pledged to help avoiding the return of a hard border because she remembers the Berlin Wall dividing her country for 34 years.
Ms Merkel said she remembers the joy of that border being lifted and so would never want to see one return along the North and South.
The German Chancellor was speaking after a bilateral meeting with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in Farmleigh, Dublin.
Ms Merkel said that they have a saying in German, the same as in English: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” and that the EU leaders are ready to work “to the very last hour” to do everything possible to find a Brexit deal.
The UK is due to crash out of the EU as it stands without a deal next Friday, April 12.
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But there is a special emergency summit of EU leaders arranged for next Wednesday in Brussels, where it’s hoped that a deal can be hammered out.
It will have to be either an acceptance of the Withdrawal Agreement by the British House of Commons, or an agreement by the EU leaders to offer another Brexit deadline extension to the UK so they can come up with another way.
“We will work to the very last hour and we will do whatever we can to avoid a no deal departure of the UK,” Ms Merkel said.
“We will continue to stand together with Ireland and we recognise that Ireland is especially affected by Brexit.”
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Ms Merkel also spoke about the Berlin Wall and her experience of having lived on the other side of it in East Germany for more than 34 years.
“I am from a country that was divided.
“I lived for 34 years in a country that was divided.
“I lived there, I know what it was like, and I know what it was like to have that border lifted.”
Mr Varadkar said that the EU 27 leaders would face challenges together.
“Nobody will be trying to impose anything on anyone else,” he said, in relation to the responsibility for a border or customs checks if there is a no deal Brexit.
He said that we will have to protect the Single Market as members of the EU.
This will involve customs checks for trade between Ireand and the UK as the UK will then be a ‘third country’ and tariffs and other regulations will have to apply for their goods coming into the EU.
That includes Ireland if goods move from North to South.
Ireland, the EU and the UK all want to do this without a border.
The EU and Ireland came up with the ‘backstop’ which would include regulatory alignment for Northern Ireland, in other words, special membership of the Customs Union that would remove the need for any barrier.
This has been rejected by the UK on the back of stiff resistance to the backstop from hard Brexiteers and the DUP in Northern Ireland.
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Mr Varadkar said that protection of the Good Friday Agreement that brought the Troubles to an end in Northern Ireland is also paramount.
“I was able to explain to the Chancellor our twin objectives, first to protect the Good Friday Agreement and everything that flows from that.
“And also to uphold the integrity of the Common Market, the Single Market and the Customs Union, which is something that we want to do.
“We made a decision as a country almost 20 years ago that our future was at the heart of Europe, that we’d be in the eurozone, the Single Market and the Customs Union.”
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