Here's What European Newspapers Are Saying About The EU Referendum

In mainland Europe, voices encouraging Britain to leave the EU are hard to find.

1. The Netherlands: "An EU without Britain would be like tea without milk. Bitter."

ad.nl Dagblad

"Though the Brits might sometimes be a pain, we can't and don't want to live without them."

Inside, Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad featured the following open letter:

Via Twitter: @FeriniNvliet

"Hello Britain, this is your neighbour calling. Please don't leave us. Of course, there will always be a Great Britain, anchored only 20 miles from the continent. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, we feel at ease in your amazing country. Since our King William III (of Orange) married your Queen Mary II (of England) we have been related anyway.

"Nobody in Britain appreciates your culture more than we do. The Beatles, Bridget Jones, One Direction, Eastenders, Brideshead Revisited, we love it all. Many of us know Monty Python's dead parrot sketch by heart. We admire your stiff upper lip. And every year we remember, with the greatest respect, all those who have fallen to liberate our country.

"Now you are thinking of leaving us. Sailing out your floating country towards distant shores, so says your largest newspaper, The Sun. Talking to a Dutch uncle, we have to tell you this is not a good idea. We not only love you, we need you. Who else supports us in keeping some common sense on this turbulent continent of ours. An EU without the UK would be like tea without milk. Bitter.

"So please stay. Stay with us. Best wishes, your neighbours."

2. Germany: "What a Brex-shit."

bild.de

Via Bild, Germany's biggest daily newspaper:

"These days, there could hardly be a bigger gap than that between the consequences of the British referendum on leaving the EU and the level of the corresponding discussion. History is being written on the island – but with mud. It is a toxic mix of a distortion of facts, half-truths, and madness. This applies to both sides.

"The Brits are about to lethally weaken the West that they have shaped like no other nation. How can they do this to us – and to themselves?"

3. Germany: "Please don't go!"

spiegel.de

Der Spiegel, Germany's biggest news magazine, wrote the following in a special bilingual issue:

"Britain is a bridge between Europe and the US. If Britain leaves the EU on this side of the Atlantic while Donald Trump becomes president on the other, then seemingly permanent alliances will wobble, and a weakened Europe would end up alone, helpless amid myriad global crises.

"If the right-wing populists grow stronger, because Europe suddenly weakens and shrinks just as they are on the rise, what will remain of the ideal of tolerant and progressive cooperation that defines the west?

"So if Britain is clever, it will realise that it is not a world power on its own, that it will lose much with a yes to Brexit on June 23, and gain nothing but a brief moment of pride...

"The day after the vote, the British should understand that they themselves helped create this detested Europe that they were so close to leaving, and start building a better one."

4. France: "The country which cornered Napoleon cannot succumb to Nigel Farage."

Le Monde / Via lemonde.fr

In an editorial written in English, Le Monde compared Brexit to France's experience of defeat at the Battle of Waterloo:

"Defeat does not come easily to a proud nation. On June 18th, 1815, France did not only lose thousands of its brave soldiers on the gory fields of Belgium. It lost an Emperor, whom the English then took into permanent exile on the desolate island of St Helena; it also lost its dream of hegemony...

"Messieurs les Anglais, don’t let the sirens of a fake independence pull you away from the continent. Just as in 1815, your future is in Europe."

5. Sweden: "Great Britain should lead the EU, not leave it."

Twitter: @birgittaohlsson

In business newspaper Dagens Industri political editor Peter Magnus Nilsson wrote:

"You represent the triumphal power in the EU. Be careful with what we have built up. Be careful with other people’s feelings. We are all like you – proud and headstrong with special relationships to each other. And we have a club. Don’t leave it."

6. Sweden: "This is how hard Brexit is going to hit you: jobs, exports, the stock market, international education, and Sweden’s place in the EU.”

Twitter: @DavidSandbergSD / Via Aftonbladet

7. Italy: "No to Brexit to save Europe."

Via corriere.it

Via Corriere:

"The game being played in Britain makes it clear that there is a conflict on the continent, one that sees history and economics collide violently with the plight of migrants: a perfect storm of conflicting identities."

8. "Spain leads the rejection of Brexit."

elpais.com / Via El Pais

Via El Pais, Spain's biggest newspaper:

"A majority in the five biggest countries of the EU support Britain remaining in the EU... In Spain support is higher than the European average, with 64% of people canvassed leaning towards Remain."

9. Meanwhile, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban took out the following full-page ad in the Brexit-supporting Daily Mail.

Twitter: @johnestevens