Enda heads to Berlin with Ireland better fixed than ever for challenges ahead

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Taoiseach Enda Kenny at a meeting in Berlin in 2012. Photo: AP

John Downing Twitter

April 3 2017 2:30 AM

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• Enda heads to Berlin with Ireland better fixed than ever for challenges ahead

  Independent.ie

  So, 'Injury-Time Enda' and "Electioneering Angela" have a date with fate in Berlin on Thursday. Last week we finally saw the end of the nine-month "Brexit phoney war" - this week things will begin to build to a crucial EU leaders' summit on April 29.

  http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/john-downing/enda-heads-to-berlin-with-ireland-better-fixed-than-ever-for-challenges-ahead-35587747.html

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So, 'Injury-Time Enda' and "Electioneering Angela" have a date with fate in Berlin on Thursday. Last week we finally saw the end of the nine-month "Brexit phoney war" - this week things will begin to build to a crucial EU leaders' summit on April 29.

That's when the Brexit negotiating ground rules will be fixed. That summit aftermath might also just finally see an end being fixed to our "will-he-stay-or-will-he-go" Taoiseach's long goodbye. But that Brexit sub-plot is for another day.

More immediately, the Angela Merkel-Enda Kenny dynamic has been interesting. It looked quite good at the very start with a photocall before the 2011 general election of their meeting, also in Berlin, when there was much spin about Mr Kenny "tapping into the European People's Party connection" which he had in common with the German Chancellor.

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