Justin Huggler, the Telegraph's Berlin correspondent, reports:

Brexit does not dominate the headlines in Germany to the extent you might expect. It failed to make the front page of Bild, the country's highest-selling newspaper, which runs an inside headline of "Round one in Brexit thriller" and asks: "Will the Brexit hardliners go to the barricades?"

Brexit does make the front page of the influential Süddeutsche Zeitung with the headline: "May clears important Brexit hurdle". In a guest editorial, Günter Verheugen, the former German European commissioner, offers an olive branch to the UK over free trade. "In its policy towards third countries, the EU is always interested in full free trade. Just think of Canada or Japan," he writes. "Why should one deny Britain something that is granted to other, if not all, third countries?

But Welt newspaper paints a gloomy picture of Britain's future. Under a front page headline of "Brexit is not the only problem", the paper says the UK faces "multiple economic problems, including persistently low productivity growth, high public debt, rising spending with an aging of society, and a large current account deficit".

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung's front page headline is a dry "British cabinet agrees Brexit deal". Inside, the paper focuses on the drama of yesterday's cabinet talks in a lengthy piece under the headline "The last judgement is gracious" but warns: "In the end, parliamentary rules of procedure could determine whether the UK leaves the EU in an orderly or disorderly way, and whether it comes to new elections or even a new referendum".

A comment piece under a headline of "Fog on the Thames" ponders what David Cameron must think of the outcome of his decision to hold a referendum. "He wanted to clarify once and for all the perennial topic of British politics and the Conservative Party: Europe. But the opposite has happened, the paper notes. "The Brexit ultras are different. They prefer to get excited about possible compromises and use a combat and victim vocabulary that includes prhases such as 'vassal state' and 'capitulation'."

German politicians across the spectrum have so far stuck rigidly to the position that Brexit negotiations are being handled by the European Commission and declined to comment, leaving FAZ to report: "The Brexit draft is well received in Brussels."

Business leaders have been more forthcoming. "After agreement on a Brexit deal, we are cautiously optimistic a disorderly exit can still be averted," Holger Bingmann, president of the German foreign trade association (BGA), said.

But the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry warned that businesses are still facing uncertainty. "It's high time for companies to know what they need to prepare for," , Eric Schweitzer, the head of the chamber said. "The British government should make the path towards an ordely Brexit clear and credible and avert the worst case scenario. Brexit in any form will lead to higher costs for business. An unregulated Brexit would be a disaster."