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THE POTENTIAL BREXIT IMPACT ON THE EUROPEAN UNION

P. Csanyi

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to describe and analyze the ‘Brexit’ and its potential impact on the United Kingdom and the European Union. Any discussion of a Brexit should be set against the backdrop of an increasingly convulsive European landscape. The merits and shortcomings of the European Union should be judged not in isolation, but through the lens of their implications upon a broader postwar European order that Britain has helped to build and sustain for nearly seven decades. US strategic retrenchment, Germany's economic and political pre-eminence within the EU, and Russia's attempts to recreate a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe are likely to disrupt the European balance. Brexit could exacerbate each of these disruptive trends – with negative ramifications for UK national security. Conversely, by leveraging its membership of and influence within the EU, Britain could help revitalize the transatlantic relationship, mitigate the specter of a German-dominated EU, and check Russian revisionism in Eastern Europe. This analysis tries to focus on the impact on the UK as well as the European Union. Even though the analysis expects that while the biggest impact of Brexit would be on the UK, there can be little doubt that there will also be a significant impact on the rest of the EU. The impact of Brexit on British businesses, the UK economy and wider British interests would be severe and felt across multiple channels. The direct impact on the rest of the EU would also be significant. However, Brexit would have a wider political impact on the EU, both by disrupting internal political dynamics and because of the risk of political contagion if the ‘proof of concept’ of leaving the EU encourages disintegrative forces in other member states.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/SGEMSOCIAL2017/HB11/S01.035

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