That's a lot deeper than a comparison with NATO. Although the UK isn't a signatory of all of the EU's treaties, like the Eurozone and Schengen zone, it's still part of many agreements, economical especially (for the most important, agriculture, and the monetary support for eastern Europe, which is measured in billions per years), and that's more than just withdrawing from a military alliance. We have to remember that the EU is more than just an union of agreements. It has a growing government and parliament, and is issuing a colossal amount of laws and regulations, and is progressively taking a more and more important part of each member nations governing autonomy.
Another issue remains that withdrawing from the EU is technically a black hole, because it's not taken into consideration in the foundings of the union proper. It's not forbidden mind you, but it has never really been taken into consideration. That will obviously not prevent it from happening, but it's a first.
Then once it's done you get the status of the country itself as major issue: it would leave UK like a country that has absolutely no agreements or deals with the EU whatsoever (to give a perspective, even Turkey has some of those). Not only would they require full visas to get in/out of territory, but all economic ties would be lost. To make a (very!) gross analogy for americans, it would be like Canada suddenly losing all ties and travel/economic agreements with the US, and becoming like Mexico. They would have to re-apply for all of that and that would take years. Nobody wants that and that's probably why they are willing to negociate a lot around it.
Then you have the issue of all the duties/benefits that the UK had to honour while in the EU, like the yearly financing for the lesser developped countries of the Union (like all of the new eastern Europe members, for whom ironically the UK was the biggest proponent, and these countries were strongly in favour of the Remain vote). Or like fishing quotas, etc. The UK would not have to pay for that anymore, and that would mean for the biggest contributors like Germany and France to give more to compensate among other things. The UK would also stop getting european subventions (like fishing, esp Scotland).
The biggest nightmare for everyone right now is to see independence movements being embolden by that move. Denmark for example, has grown quite anti Europe (not to the extent of the UK for now). People are afraid that could snowball. Internally in the UK as well, with europhiles like Scotland and Ireland.Â
Then you have all the speculation going, that is less about facts and more about predictions: the City of London losing progressively its central place on stockmarket and moving to the EU other hubs, the UK losing lots of growth over ten years without the EU behind, etc. Only time will tell. Maybe it's going to be the contrary, who knows.
And well, it's also a huge loss for the EU, which account for approximately right now around a quarter of the world's GNP and economy, by far the first. UK is a non negligible part of it.
On another note, we don't know how it's going to shift the powers inside the EU as well. The UK is close to the northern countries way of thinking, which are big proponent of free open trade. If the UK leaves, it will leave Scandinavian nations in an awkward and weakened position against the more centralistic views of the founders. There is also the language thing, perhaps. The UK gone, the only english speaking country left would be Malta. It is therefore possible that the (bastardized version of) english being the main language would be challenged by the french again, because Germany would be left without a strong excuse against it. All in all, for some countries, the UK was a much needed third player, for that they tend to see otherwise something that could be taken as a napoleonic nightmare.
______________
But I feel like doing a disservice to a very complicated matter with that gross summary here... with maybe inaccuracies. I would highly suggest finding a more exhaustive and factual source than my own europhile bias.
Another issue remains that withdrawing from the EU is technically a black hole, because it's not taken into consideration in the foundings of the union proper. It's not forbidden mind you, but it has never really been taken into consideration. That will obviously not prevent it from happening, but it's a first.
Then once it's done you get the status of the country itself as major issue: it would leave UK like a country that has absolutely no agreements or deals with the EU whatsoever (to give a perspective, even Turkey has some of those). Not only would they require full visas to get in/out of territory, but all economic ties would be lost. To make a (very!) gross analogy for americans, it would be like Canada suddenly losing all ties and travel/economic agreements with the US, and becoming like Mexico. They would have to re-apply for all of that and that would take years. Nobody wants that and that's probably why they are willing to negociate a lot around it.
Then you have the issue of all the duties/benefits that the UK had to honour while in the EU, like the yearly financing for the lesser developped countries of the Union (like all of the new eastern Europe members, for whom ironically the UK was the biggest proponent, and these countries were strongly in favour of the Remain vote). Or like fishing quotas, etc. The UK would not have to pay for that anymore, and that would mean for the biggest contributors like Germany and France to give more to compensate among other things. The UK would also stop getting european subventions (like fishing, esp Scotland).
The biggest nightmare for everyone right now is to see independence movements being embolden by that move. Denmark for example, has grown quite anti Europe (not to the extent of the UK for now). People are afraid that could snowball. Internally in the UK as well, with europhiles like Scotland and Ireland.Â
Then you have all the speculation going, that is less about facts and more about predictions: the City of London losing progressively its central place on stockmarket and moving to the EU other hubs, the UK losing lots of growth over ten years without the EU behind, etc. Only time will tell. Maybe it's going to be the contrary, who knows.
And well, it's also a huge loss for the EU, which account for approximately right now around a quarter of the world's GNP and economy, by far the first. UK is a non negligible part of it.
On another note, we don't know how it's going to shift the powers inside the EU as well. The UK is close to the northern countries way of thinking, which are big proponent of free open trade. If the UK leaves, it will leave Scandinavian nations in an awkward and weakened position against the more centralistic views of the founders. There is also the language thing, perhaps. The UK gone, the only english speaking country left would be Malta. It is therefore possible that the (bastardized version of) english being the main language would be challenged by the french again, because Germany would be left without a strong excuse against it. All in all, for some countries, the UK was a much needed third player, for that they tend to see otherwise something that could be taken as a napoleonic nightmare.
______________
But I feel like doing a disservice to a very complicated matter with that gross summary here... with maybe inaccuracies. I would highly suggest finding a more exhaustive and factual source than my own europhile bias.
Balmung:Â Suen Shyu
