THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Europe at the political crossroads

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

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The consequences of Brexit

In the run-up to the European Council in

February 2015, a number of studies and reports

were published on the consequences of Brexit

both for the UK and for the rest of the EU. The

basic position of British Eurosceptics is based on

three ideas (Dixon 2015)

– UKmembership of the EU is counter-productive.

– There is no possibility of reforming the EU.

– There are magnificent prospects outside the EU.

In contrast, those who wish to remain in the

EU contest these claims. In highly simplified

terms, the UK represents less than 1 % of the

world’s population and its economy accounts

for less than 3 % of global GDP. The EU is a

practical way of ensuring the future prosperity

and security of its citizens in a world dominated

by powerful groups of nations and individual

countries, a situation that requires European

states to work together in areas such as trade,

defence and foreign affairs. Moreover, the deep

social and cultural integration of British society

with the rest of Europe is indisputable and is

stronger among younger generations.

Advocates of remaining in the EU argue the

need for the reform of specific EU policies, such

as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and

structural and cohesion policies, the regulation

of certain economic activities, and, above all,

the EU’s social dimension. However, this critical

perspective is more than compatible with con-

tinued membership on account of the net ben-

efits. The Single Market (500 million consumers)

represents 3.1 million direct jobs and 1.1 million

indirect jobs in the UK, a total of 4.2 million. The

UK contribution to the EU budget is just 0.5 %

Dixon, Hugo:

The in/out question

. Amazon: Kindle Sin-

gles, 2015.

of GDP, which is clearly easily sustainable.

According to the most recent survey by the

Confederation of British Industry, 78 % of

the country’s SMEs are in favour of staying in.

It is hard to predict the consequences for

trade in British goods and services if the country

votes to leave the EU. The UK is part of the

world’s largest trade bloc, equivalent to 20 % of

global GDP, and this is reflected in the negotia-

tions with giants such as the United States,

China and Japan. The UK would clearly be in a

position of weakness vis-à-vis all these coun-

tries, and also with respect to the EU, which

would continue to be larger than any other

trade bloc on the planet. In terms of foreign

policy and security, the United States, the UK’s

historic ally, has expressed its desire to see the

country remain a strong member of a strong EU.

The possibility of Brexit is generating consider-

able uncertainty, since nobody knows exactly

what it would mean. Although Norway is part

of the Single Market without being a member

of the EU, to do so it must passively adopt

European regulations while having no say in

their definition. Would such an arrangement

work for the UK? Probably not, although there

are other alternatives.

Pro-Europeans versus Eurosceptics

One thing that sets the UK’s pro-Europeans

apart from their Continental counterparts is

their acceptance of the need to reform the EU

and the direction such reform would take. In the

best case scenario, the British proposals could

form part of the larger reform project to be un-

dertaken by the EU in the future, ruling out,

however, the full participation of the UK across

the range of EU policies. At present, for exam-

ple, it is simply unthinkable that the UK would