Germany

Germany’s Bild newspaper promised on Thursday that Germans would not hog hotel sunloungers and would make key concessions to the England football team if the UK voted to stay in the European Union.

“Dear Brits, if you remain in the EU … then we ourselves will recognise the Wembley goal,” Bild declared above a picture of Geoff Hurst’s controversial extra-time goal in the 1966 World Cup final, when England beat West Germany. The paper said Germany would go without its goalkeeper in the next penalty shootout between England and Germany.

We’ll put our clocks back an hour to suit you, promises Bild. Photograph: Bild

Bild also pledged to supply the baddie for every James Bond film, put its clocks back one hour so they would be in the same time zone as Britain, not use suntan lotion out of solidarity with sunburnt Brits, and introduce an EU guideline that bans froth on beer, if Britain votes to remain.



The entirety of that @BILD #euref front page, translated by my Mum pic.twitter.com/nKLxjWd2Oi — Patrick Gower (@PatrickGower) June 23, 2016

France

Libération ran a double issue, Who’s in and who’s out, warning that Nigel Farage’s “Breaking Point” poster summed up the whole referendum debate – warning of “a country that is suspicious, that tenses and closes in on itself, even though Great Britain has made remarkable efforts to integrate its minorities and open up its elites to diversity”.

The editor, Laurent Joffrin, cautioned that a Brexit would be “an example, a precedent, a dangerous shock that would encourage nationalism, that poison for which Europe is the antidote”.

Aujourd'hui en kiosques, numéro spécial Brexit, avec double une. Qui est in ? Qui est out ? https://t.co/3JSmr5jwbC pic.twitter.com/Mvr8xvETA2 — Libération (@libe) June 23, 2016

The headline “Brexit or Not Brexit” – dotted across French media in recent days – was meanwhile still going strong on the front pages of both Le Figaro and Le Parisien.



In Le Figaro, the rightwing mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, reiterated her long-held view that if the UK votes to leave the EU, France should immediately renegotiate the 2003 Le Touquet accord – the bilateral treaty that, by allowing British border officers to carry out passport checks in Calais, effectively places part of Britain’s border with France in the French port and allows migrants and refugees seeking to reach Britain to be held back at Calais.

Bouchard said Brexit would provide a good opportunity to pull out of the agreement and push the border and migrants back to Kent. Because the accord is between Britain and France, and not a European one, there is no automatic need to review it, but Bouchard said a Brexit vote would put France “in a strong position to be able to renegotiate”.

Le Parisien warned that a vote to leave would have “a snowball effect” – bringing to the fore competing nationalisms in Europe where “populist and Europhobic movements” had already gained ground in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and France.

Le Monde warned: “We believe that a Brexit would unleash some of the darkest forces influencing European opinion today: regressive nationalism, the rise of the extreme-right protest vote and, here and there, threats against democracy.”

Italy

The vote dominates Italy’s front pages, deemed “Europe’s longest day” by La Repubblica and the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

Il giorno più lungo d’Europa - La prima pagina di Repubblica di oggi https://t.co/LZaZp2FObT pic.twitter.com/8H7asx1zLm — la Repubblica (@repubblicait) June 23, 2016

Rome’s top paper, Il Messaggero, carried a bleak image of the “anxiety and fear of the British, divided on the destiny of the kingdom”, and says the climate in Britain has become even more poisonous since the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox.

The staunchly anti-EU Il Giornale carried a photo of a “Keep Calm & Vote Leave” van, declaring that whoever won, Brussels had lost.



Denmark

The rightwing Berlingske published an English-language editorial imploring Britain to “please stay” in the EU, amid fears Denmark could lose a key ally in Brussels.

“As a nation, we in Denmark understand your scepticism about the EU, perhaps better than any other country. Three times we voted no - in 1992, 2000 and 2015 - but never out.

“Let us stay and fight for pragmatic, better and more sustainable European solutions,” it said, adding that Britain’s voice was needed in the EU to “fight for free trade and breaking down regulation and bureaucracy.”

A cartoon on the paper’s front page showed a door marked with an EU flag slamming shut on a half naked man with a bowler hat and an umbrella, tearing off his Union Jack suit as it closed behind him.

PLEASE STAY. I morgen har @berlingske en særlig forside - den baserer sig på vores leder, som opfordrer til #bremain pic.twitter.com/CdeJPotziw — Kasper Kildegaard (@Kildegaardens) June 22, 2016

Spain

Spain may be three days away from its second general election in six months and in the middle of scandal involving the acting home secretary, but its papers are still drenched in Brexit sweats.



In a leader entitled Better in than out. Please, El País makes a passionate plea for unity, reminding the UK that Thursday’s vote will affect every European citizen.

“For all its disadvantages, limitations and shortcomings, the EU is one of the greatest political and economic successes of recent history – as President Obama pointed out in Hanover. So why leave it? Why damage it? … Britons, vote in our name. Please.”

Portada | Reino Unido decide hoy sobre su futuro y el de Europa https://t.co/1mQZZO4yQo — EL PAÍS (@el_pais) June 22, 2016

Similar sentiments are expressed by El Mundo, which warns of the irreparable damage a leave vote would do to the EU, adding: “European citizens are holding our breath today and counting on the good sense of the UK’s European citizens.”

ABC recognises that the “colossal framework” of the EU needs to be overhauled to make it more effective, less bureaucratic, “and, above all, closer to those it is intended to benefit”. But the paper says that Eurosceptics of whatever nation should not be allowed to undermine the notion of one great community.

“All the citizens that make up the EU have a stake in Great Britain today,” it says. “We trust that the fine common sense and pragmatism of the British people will save us from the abyss and that, at the same time, the EU’s political class will finally knuckle down to the job so that our great project isn’t questioned every time the hurricane of economic crisis starts to blow.”

Norway

The referendum dominated front pages in Norway, which while not an EU member is part of the single market. “Today Britain can split Europe,” read the headline of Aftenposten. The cartoon on the newspaper’s front page showed Boris Johnson in a pose reminiscent of Arthurian legend, trying to pull a sword out of a stone decorated as the EU flag – if he manages to do so, he’ll be the king.

Hva skjer om britene løsriver seg fra EU? Skjebnevalget er i dag. pic.twitter.com/jxiXpQL43Q — Aftenposten (@Aftenposten) June 22, 2016

“Fears that emotions will take Britain out of the EU,” read the front page headline of Dagens Næringsliv.

Belgium

Only Belgium’s narrow win over Sweden in Euro 2016 last night is competing with Brexit on the front pages of several main Belgian newspapers.

“Stay with us,” said the headline, in English, of an editorial on the front page of the francophone daily Le Soir, which has devoted its first eight pages to a referendum supplement, reporting on the “inescapable” Boris Johnson, a “divided country” and how the EU might respond.

“For those who are convinced of the necessity of pursuing European integration – a position which is always strong in Belgium – the prospect of seeing the exit of the eternal outsider and troublemaker has a certain attraction,” writes Le Soir’s editorialist. But in ringing terms, the paper concludes that without the “dynamic” UK, Europe would be significantly weaker, more vulnerable to its enemies and in thrall to nationalists.



The referendum question makes less of a splash in the main Dutch-speaking papers, despite warnings about the hit to the Flemish economy. “After Ireland, Flanders would be hardest hit by a Brexit,” the region’s minister-president, Geert Bourgeois, has said, warning that its economy could be 2.5% smaller by 2030.