Don’t cry for me Britannia: The resilience of the European Union to Brexit

Abstract

We assess the impact of the United Kingdom’s 2016 decision to leave the European Union on the Council of the European Union, where Brexit is likely to have the clearest observable implications. Using concepts and models from the spatial model of politics and network analysis, we formulate and test expectations regarding the effects of Brexit. We examine two of the most prominent datasets on recent decision-making in the European Union, which include data on cooperation networks among member states before and after the 2016 referendum. Our findings identify some of the political challenges that Brexit will bring, but also highlight the factors that are already helping the European Union’s remaining member states to adapt to Brexit.

Explaining Cooperation in the Council of the EU Before and After the Brexit Referendum

“…That is, are cooperative relations following the same patterns and explanations as before, or do other factors become more prominent in this adjustment process? Also here, Huhe et al (2020) offer some answers. They show that new ties are formed by those member states who lose standing in the network as a consequence of Brexit, based on the positional proximity to other member states.…”

“…The Brexit referendum and withdrawal negotiations are very recent events, and their effect on cooperation and overall functioning of the EU and its institutions has only been explored to a limited extent. Huhe, Naurin, and Thomson (2017Thomson ( , 2020 tested the impact of the UK leaving the EU for both the network relations of remaining member states, but also for the content of policy output. They did so by subtracting the UK from historical data on cooperation and positions taken in legislative negotiations in the Council, showing to what extent policy output would have been different had the UK not taken part in the negotiations, as well as the degree to which the standing of the historically strong allies to the UK are affected when losing this strong partner.…”

“…It has been argued that the UK's decision to leave the EU forces the remaining member states, particularly those who had previously had strong ties to the UK, to seek new partners in the Council (Huhe et al, 2020;Johansson et al, 2019). As the relevant relations along the VoC dimension are believed to already have been established before the Brexit vote, any new relations should be expected to be found along other dimensions.…”

“…However, even if the migration crisis and general politicization trends might be moving the EU member states in a more ideological direction, the subtraction of a member state can be expected to act as a trigger forcing other member states to actually start searching for new cooperation partners. Existing studies on how the Council is affected by the Brexit vote have also shown that remaining member states are adjusting their cooperative relations (Huhe et al, 2020;Johansson et al, 2019).…”

“…The UK has always been a central player in the EU as one of its three big member states and had a central position also in Council cooperation and negotiation networks (e.g., Johansson, Naurin, & Lindahl, 2019;Naurin & Lindahl, 2008). Leaving the EU, and the Council, is expected to leave remaining member states with a need to adjust to this new cooperative landscape (Huhe, Naurin, & Thomson, 2020). This is particularly true to those that have traditionally had close relations with the UK, a fact that many of them are also aware of (Johansson et al, 2019).…”