There Is Life for the EU After Brexit
Civis Mundi Digitaal #57
door Caroline de Gruyter
If the UK leaves the EU as planned in March 2019, the political ballgame in Europe will change profoundly. A great deal of attention has been paid to the details of the Brexit negotiations themselves and how the UK’s departure will affect big EU member states like France and Germany. But how Brexit will impact the political weight of and the dynamics between smaller member states has garnered far less attention than it should.
The departure of the UK—a large, liberal, northern country—will change the balance of power in the European Union. Its northern allies, including the Nordics and the Dutch, will lose about 12 percent of their voting power in Brussels without the UK, and southern states will gain prominence. The remaining twenty-seven EU member states are aware that this will affect the way they conduct politics in Brussels—the question is how, exactly.