Last week, the president of the European Union Council, Donald Tusk, received a letter from British prime minister Theresa May invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. The formal notice officially began the United Kingdom’s two-year exit process from the EU.

Writing in London's pan-Arab daily paper Asharq Al Awsat, Lebanese columnist Rajeh El Khoury noted that European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker had warned Britain should expect a hefty bill as the price for its EU exit.

According to the writer, it is not about the material costs as much as it is about the difficult and complicated divorce that might pave the way for similar trends within the EU and within Britain itself.

“For instance, Britain’s EU exit might encourage France to follow suit in the event of the victory of far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen,” the writer noted.

Economic experts expect the Brexit negotiations to cover all aspects, from fishing to agriculture up to trade and immigration, not to mention travel and migration within Europe.

“When the British prime minister expressed her desire to negotiate a new trade agreement with the EU, German chancellor Angela Merkel quickly and firmly replied that Britain will no longer be given access to the EU market once it exits the union unless it agrees to the free movement of people,” El Khoury wrote.

However, he argued, Mrs May’s government will not gain more influence over Europe’s immigration policies with Britain’s exit.

Case in point: it cannot control security at the tunnel entrance in the French city of Calais, where thousands of immigrants gather with the hope of reaching Britain.

The writer added that Britain’s EU exit also presents other aspects that are related to a more important issue.

“Britain is parting ways with Europe just as Scotland is getting ready to leave Britain, and Northern Ireland might follow suit soon.

“It is a multifaceted divorce with non-guaranteed outcomes, at least for the future of the United Kingdom,” he concluded.

Writing in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, the columnist Mustafa Zein noted that Britain will end its 44-year-old EU membership to join the world market and open up to China, Japan and Canada instead of Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

“According to Brexit advocates, this move will allow London to shake off the legal restraints imposed by the undemocratically elected European Commission,” Zein said.

However, he continued, these same advocates are basking in their past glory, living with the illusion that they can control the world and impose their rules as the East India Company once did on Asia and all European colonists did at the start of the 19th century.

“They were not informed of the conditions imposed by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on his British counterpart during the talks they held in New Delhi last November,” the writer said.

“These conditions included an apology from Britain for the colonial period and the facilitation of the entry of tens of thousands of Indians to work and study in Britain, in addition to new domestic rules restricting investor freedom.”

According to the writer, the reason behind the non-disclosure of these conditions is Mrs May’s keenness to leave the EU. As such, she refrained from discussing them, merely announcing that her visit to India was promising and that post-Brexit London will be the leader of free trade as it will no longer be weighed down by hampering laws.

But beyond the trade rules, the writer saw the renewed age-old struggle for power between the union members.

“This is the same struggle that led to two world wars in the past century. It has resurfaced in the competition between Britain and Germany over control of the European Union which lies in the hands of Berlin, in agreement with Paris,” he wrote.

Zein argued that London’s only recourse was US president Donald Trump, who sees in the EU an agglomeration that harms his personal interests and his investment ambitions in certain countries that are restricted by regulations from EU headquarters in Brussels.

“The fear of German power is returning in full force to Europe, and Britain’s only way to weaken Berlin in its surroundings is to dismantle the European Union and resort to the United States in addition to going overseas,” the writer concluded.

Translated by Jennifer Attieh

translation@thenational.ae