The message of Brexit to the European Union

As the outcome of the Brexit saga is still uncertain, the European Union would do well to re-examine its performance as a daring experiment in large-scale socio-political engineering.

Although, as expected, the UK still manages to remain linked to the EU via Brexit, the fact is that millions of Britons and other Europeans are unhappy with the aspects of the EU. experience.

The first problem with the EU is that, although it is called a union, it is really not, even if it has a flag, a national anthem, a parliament, a council of ministers and even pseudo embbadies. many countries. Despite this, the EU is essentially an economic club; This is not a state. Therefore, the EU is mainly interested in two branches of the economy: industry and agriculture, which account for about 32% of the combined gross domestic product (GDP) of 28 Member States.

In the case of Britain, which is primarily a service economy, industry and agriculture account for about 25% of GDP. The EU's annual budget represents around 1% of the total GDP of its 28 members. However, on average, the state of 28 member countries controls spending of about 50 percent of GDP.

The main aspects of the economy, including taxes, interest rates and, apart from the members of the euro area, national currencies are not the competence of the EU.

EU Member States represent and shape many historical memories and experiences. The British are made up of two centuries of colonial experience, followed by a brief flirtation with the social democracy that, in its day, bowed to the Thatcherist version of capitalism. The Nordic member states of the EU come from seven decades of social democracy with "the welfare state" as a key concept.

Germany and Austria are proud of their economic model of "social market", followed with deep distrust by other European countries. Italy and, to a lesser extent, Greece, Spain and Portugal have a "black and white" model in which the informal or informal economy is almost as important as the official economy. Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg have lived with what they call "social capitalism", a system in which the main role of the state is to redistribute the wealth created.

France, depending on the party in power at one point, oscillated between the German-Austrian and Dutch models. The members of Central and Eastern Europe were part of the Soviet-dominated Warsaw-Comecon Pact, and they had previously expected the state and the ruling party to make all the decisions and decisions. meet all needs.

The 28 Member States also have different political systems, ranging from traditional monarchies to republics from revolutionary backgrounds to nations emerging from the ruins of empires.

They also have important stories of enmity towards each other. But leaving aside long stories of wars, some of which have lasted for over 100 years, there is little love between the French and the Germans or the British. As for Hungarians, Romanians are the most hated people in the world. They still manage more than four million "Hungarian captives" whose territory they annexed in 1919.

On the other hand, the Irish love the British as much as the French like Germans, that is to say not much. The Italians still remember the oppression of the Austrians and the Spaniards have not forgotten their fight against Napoleon.

Given these minor details, it is surprising that the EU has managed to bring together so many countries in an area that has the longest and most intense history of national rivalries and enmities compared to any other part of the world. There is no doubt that this success is partly due to the fears of the cold war and the hopes aroused after the fall of the Soviet empire. This shows that the nations of Western Europe have felt the need to put aside old quarrels to face the "Eastern Communist Beast".

In the post – Soviet era, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe rushed to join the EU and NATO in order to distance them as much as possible from their former Russian oppressors.

It goes without saying that the United States encouraged the formation of the initial common market and supported its transformation into the European Union as part of a broad strategy to contain the former USSR. In this context, the EU has played an important role in ensuring peace and stability on a continent that has been the scene of most of the wars that humanity has known in its history.

The EU has also done a great job in helping new members reach parity with founding members in key areas of the rule of law, democratic values, economic regulations and international behavior.

Brexit highlighted the main challenges facing the EU. The first concerns a general overestimation of the role of the EU. This is due to their perception of supranational state, which certainly is not. Secondly, the EU is also facing the challenge posed by the return of the nation-state as the most popular model of socio-political organization in the world.

At the present time, all supranational and / or international organizations, from the United Nations to NATO, are viewed with suspicion, not to say hostility, not only in Europe but also throughout the world and the world over. EU does not escape that.

Therefore, EU leaders and those who support it would do well to give a more modest and realistic image of the Union as an economic club dealing with certain aspects of the economy. of its members and not as "United States of Europe". "

The EU has claimed to be a machine that tries to impose uniformity on countries that have always boasted of their specificity. Even then, the Union can survive and even prosper, but to do so, it must work for unity in diversity. Otherwise, Brexit's message to the EU must clearly be interpreted as an obvious obstacle to: The EU putting aside its vanity and understanding the current political, economic and historical moment.