Brexit and ‘enlargement fatigue’ threaten the dream of further integration, writes Tony Barber.
[...]as they approach their stated goal of closer union, the states involved will occupy, in years to come, a political, economic and legal space different from geographical Europe. [...]
Europe is set to shrink, not in a cultural but a political sense, to an area whose core is the Carolingian empire of 1,200 years ago. To understand why, consider recent events in Turkey, the Balkans, the UK and, to start with, Russia. [...]
The other factor shrinking Europe is Brexit. At one stroke Britain’s departure from the EU will deprive the bloc of one of its three largest economies, one of its two most important military powers and almost 13 per cent of its 510m people. The other side of the Brexit coin is that Germany and France will gain in weight, relative to smaller EU states.
Countries such as Hungary, Poland and Romania are acutely conscious of this. They fear that any non-euro member, sensitive about its sovereignty and sceptical about EU-wide initiatives on defence and migration, may find itself outside a self-chosen group headed by France and Germany. This is why controversy surrounds proposals for a “multispeed Europe” to impart a new sense of purpose to the EU. [...]
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