Yes. I am German and pro-European and I would happily take a deal that our GDP will be cut 20% if UK's GP is cut even 10% in return. Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful. While this might not be the optimum from an economics point of view, it serves to keep the European Union alive - which is much more important in the long run (no more war etc...).
I suspect you will find that your enjoyment of self harm is not shared by most Germans.
Not to punish the UK, but to firmly establish the principle that leaving the EU is painful
Do you realise how crazy you people sound? "There's no punishment for leaving the Mafia, you just have to understand the principle that it will be as painful as possible".
The EU has warped into an ideological disease that sees European people's turned against one another by an absolutist religion that sees diversity as a flaw to be fixed and believes its own hype about stopping wars.
The EU does nothing to stop war. If turning Europe into a single country could stop war, there'd be no civil wars, but today the only wars are civil wars.
It does not matter much if it is shared by most Germans - what matters is if it is shared by a small elite of German, French, and EU Commission/Parliament leaders. Do you really think the German population will rise up if you tell them "Hold up, discriminating against the UK in derivatives clearing rules will cost you 0.0x% of your GDP!" And to most people (outside of the UK), it is quite obvious anyway that contracts negotiated between friends cannot be transposed 1:1 into a relationship between entities who are not friends.
