On the eve of her abdication, Queen Beatrix said that marrying the plain-spoken German nobleman had been the best decision she ever took.

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The latest orders are with two German companies, Belectric and Plain Energy, and with EDF Energies Nouvelles, a unit of the French energy giant.

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It is just plain daft to suggest that if struggling Spain suddenly adopts a German attitude it will rise off its knees and succeed.

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But the German leadership, until the desperate days of late 1918, had made it perfectly plain that the only peace it would accept would be on its own terms: what it had won by force it would keep.

ECONOMIST: Letters