Thread by @hhesterm

A spectre is haunting Britain - the spectre of a German-dominated EU. It haunts remainers and leavers, as @thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK shows. It is, however, based on a myth. What we need is a better understanding of decision-making in the EU. This thread is Brexit-neutral.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Let’s start with the obvious signs that there’s something more complex going on than German domination. Take language use. If the EU is dominated by Germany, surely it must use German more than other languages. But does it?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK No. While inofficially English, French and German are the Commission’s main working languages, it is English that dominates in Commission and Council. The Court speaks French. politico.eu/article/french…

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK France did walk out of a meeting to protest a change in language-use. But it was a change to make English more dominant. politico.eu/article/englis…

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK This is despite German being the official language in four EU countries (3 each for English and French) and there being more native German speakers. jakubmarian.com/european-langu… en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages…

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK It is, by the way, a good policy: English is the most widely spoken language as a second language. But a sign of German dominance it is not.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK In the UK debate money has also played a huge role. The EU should be grateful to the UK, because it has payed so much. So surely, if it is German dominated, the Germans managed to pay less, right?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Here’s a list from the Danish EU information centre listing net contributions (negative amounts for net payers) to the EU budget in million euros. I took a screenshot for years 2006 to 2014. Here are the UK sums. Seem high?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Well, here’s the German ones. Note something? Much higher. For. Every. Single. Year.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK You are, of course, right if you point out that the German economy is larger, so it’s an unfair comparison. But then look at the second number, percentage of GNI. Again, much higher in Germany. If you account for size, the same is true for e.g. the NL.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK So if “the EU should be grateful”, who should it be grateful to? Fortunately gratefulness is not the right framing at all. You are part of a system, you pay your dues.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK OK. So we have seen very little in terms of “dominance” when it comes two of the most visible outcomes: language use and money dues. If it is not dominance, HOW ARE decisions made?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK The most common legislative procedure is now called the ordinary legislative procedure (how... uncreative...). Here’s a short description from the Council website.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK You’ll see that the main legislators are Council and European Parliament. Surely Germany must utterly dominate them given what we’ve seen in the press, right?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Here’s seats in the European Parliament by country (taken from the EP website). The Parliament is directly elected

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK OMG - that’s outrageous. Germany has 96 seats, the UK only 73? HA. Evidence.
Not so fast. The reason Germany has more seats is: Germany has a much larger population. You know: democracy. It’s why England has more MPs than Scotland.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Germany has 16 million more inhabitants than the UK. That’s roughly the smallest 8 countries in the EU combined.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK But let’s not get carried away by the difference between the UK and Germany - look instead at the numbers. Germany has 96 seats. Of 751. That’s 12.8%. Domination? Hardly.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK In fact, there’s another important lesson here: Germany has more than 16% of the population of the EU. Small countries get more EPs per person. There’s a compromise in the formula giving more, not less power to small countries. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demograph…

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK So if Germany does not dominate the EP, it certainly dominates the Council, does it not? No it doesn’t. Where the Council votes by qualified majority - the rule is this (from the Council website)

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK So you need at least 55% of member states (currently 16) and 65% of the population to get something through. Needless to say that Germany counts as one state. So it needs at least 15 others representing a large chunk of the EU population on its side to get something through.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK The goal of those formulas, by the way: prevent domination. By large over small. By small over large. And certainly by Germany over all others combined.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK Never forget that the EU was formed over 40 years by European states voluntarily doing things, including the UK. So if dominance is not the way Europe is governed, how then IS it governed?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK By working together and building consensus. The @ecfr has a nice project in which they analyze who contacts whom to build consensus. It is in that game that you have to succeed to influence the EU.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr France and Germany have been very good at that game. You know who else? The UK. You work together, try to build consensus for your position, do tradeoffs.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr From that point of view, for example, it was a disaster that the Tories left the EPP. Instead of having impact in the largest grouping in the EP, they decided to do things on their own. What would have happened if the ERP instead of influencing the Tories had just left?

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr Brexit, of course, leads to a realignment of influence. Here’s how. ecfr.eu/article/commen…

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr Now this tweet is Brexit neutral how? There’s a big lesson in all of this: Being in the EU means that many decisions are taken by a populace that includes the other EU nations.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr Some EU decisions are constitutionally entrenched in the treaties.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr It’s a perfectly acceptable choice to say you can no longer live with the constitutionally entrenched principles in the treaties (free movement, though that’s not unlimited) nor do you want the compromises that go with taking decisions on an EU-28 basis.

@thatginamiller @LeadNotLeaveUK @ecfr The downside is: less coordination leads to... less coordination. The pesty German/French/Italian/Spanish/Irish can no longer meddle with UK choices, but the UK doesn’t get to meddle with theirs. Crossing borders involves more red tape.