I am a bit tired by this topic of ‘the Germans run Europe’. And the @Dailymirror_SL putting up an interview with an actor up as evidence of a fourth Reich does not help. Should we look at it again? Does Germany run Europe? A thread
@Dailymirror_SL Let’s start with history. The EU goes back to the coal and steel community in 1951. The treaty of Paris. Who had the original idea? French Foreign Secretary Schuman and Jean Monnet. A Frenchman who spent the war time in the UK helping the war effort.
@Dailymirror_SL Here’s a link to the Schuman Declaration that started it all. From 1950. Also serves to disprove the notion that the EU was just about economics and somehow changed. europa.eu/european-union…
@Dailymirror_SL But the ECSC is not the biggest driver of EU regulation (it was disbanded after 50 years) The Single Market is. Instrumental in its creation: PM Thatcher. The U.K. the-american-interest.com/2018/10/24/sor…
@Dailymirror_SL Here’s PM Thatcher in her own words margaretthatcher.org/document/107219
@Dailymirror_SL And if you don’t want to read long speeches: here’s her praise of U.K. leadership plus an explanation why we need so much European regulation to get rid of red tape 
@Dailymirror_SL But the Euro surely, which benefits Germany so much? Nope. The French made Germany accept it as the price of reunification. Ironic maybe, but life is full of ironies. google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dail…
@Dailymirror_SL So history hardly holds up the claim of an EU dominated by Germany. Maybe that was because post WW II Germany suffers from a lack of strategic thinking. Surely the decision making structures are dominated by Germany? Well, no.
@Dailymirror_SL 2) Legally the main organs are Commission (1 Commissioner each country), Council and EP. Voting in Council and EP have been constructed to prevent, not enable dominance.
@Dailymirror_SL Here’s how the Council votes: consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/… You need at least a majority of all member states.
@Dailymirror_SL The EP has to give Germany more MEPs - Germany is the EU’s most populous nation by 16 million before the second largest, France. But representation is constructed so that larger states have less MEPs per head than smaller ones preventing dominance. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apportion…
@Dailymirror_SL But the reality of who holds the top jobs. Aren’t they German? isn’t von der Leyen? Ok. Let’s go there.
@Dailymirror_SL 3) Top job. Let’s just say the President of the Commission is special. All Germans, right? Let’s count. After the institutions were merged from three communities into one, vd Leyen is the first German P. There have been 3 from lux, 2 italy, 2 france, and uk just like germany, 1.
@Dailymirror_SL Before the merger the ECSC has 2 from France 2 from Belgium 2 from italy, Euratom 3 from france, eec 1 from Germany. Hardly an image of German domination. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President…
@Dailymirror_SL The President of the Council, previously the Pole Tusk, will now be Belgian. The President of the EP is Italian.
@Dailymirror_SL 4) Money, the UK has been ‘paying through its nose’. Surely the dominant Germans got off free, right? Well, not really. Germany pays far more than the UK. Every year. But that’s an unfair measurement, let’s look for one adjusted for size of GDP statista.com/statistics/316…
@Dailymirror_SL The Dutch have one. And you know why they do it - because by share of GDP they are the largest contributor. Germany does come second though from 2000 to 2015. The UK? 9th. Because Thatcher was a brilliant negotiator.
@Dailymirror_SL I am not saying that Germany is not influential - it is the EU’s most populous nation, after all. I am not endorsing German views, particularly not on banking union. But the simple fact is: the EU is one big compromise machine not dominated by any nation.
