Merkel is in no position to give Eurosceptics want they want

The CDU is a collectivist party, deeply suspicious of the Tory individualist ethos, says Daniel Hough

Merkel
(Image credit: AFP/Getty Images)

ANGELA MERKEL'S visit to London could hardly have been given a bigger billing; a speech to both houses of parliament, lunch with the prime minister and then tea with the Queen. David Cameron clearly had high expectations that Frau Merkel would be open to his agenda for reforming the EU. In part, he’s right - but in a number of key areas, he will be sorely disappointed.

Anyone watching Merkel start her speech in Westminster Hall could have thought that a visiting monarch was in town. The first few minutes of her address, delivered in heavily accented but nonetheless perfect English, flattered her hosts. She talked of when she visited London for the very first time (to attend a science conference and, so we found out, to pop by and listen to the wild and woolly orators at Speakers’ Corner), and the immediate affinity that she had with “die Insel”.

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