Author: Paul De Grauwe
Series: CEPS Researcher’s work published externally No. of pp: 3 pp
Paul De Grauwe has contributed a policy analysis to the Forum section of the latest issue of Intereconomics, which is devoted to the broad question of “Post-Brexit European Union”. It can be downloaded, along with other contributions on this question, at https://www.ceps.eu/system/files/IEForum52016_1.pdf
In this contribution, Paul De Grauwe argues that the UK’s main strategy in joining the EU in 1973 was to prevent the union from becoming too strong and believed that this could best be done from inside. Now that the UK is departing, he finds that this strategy remains the same, i.e. to weaken the forces that aim to make Europe stronger, by insisting on a special deal with the EU whereby it maintains the benefits of the union while not sharing in the costs. De Grauwe warns that if the UK secures such a deal, it would signal to other members that by exiting they, too, could continue to enjoy the benefits of the union without contributing to the costs, with the result that the EU would be fatally weakened.
Paul De Grauwe is Associate Senior Research Fellow at CEPS and John Paulson Professor in European Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
