[CleaningWithMud]

The EU is made up of two types of countries: small nations, and countries that have not yet realized they are small nations. The UK simply has much less leverage in these negotiations than does the EU, and EU will not reward the UK for leaving the common market.

[sk0g]

Germany, France, Spain etc are small nations? What's the criteria for one then?

[majewsky]

Germany on its own would not be on on equal footing when negotiation trade agreements with the likes of China, the US or Russia. The EU is.

[317070]

Germany has more than twice the GDP of Russia. They could reasonably handle themselves. US and China are considerably larger however.