Page 12 - ELEMENTS EUROPA (EN)

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FLUCTUAT...

On 23 June 2016, with the exception of Greater London, Scotland and
Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom in its majority voted in favour
of leaving the European Union: the latter will not be the same without
Britain. At this stage, it is too early to realise all the consequences this
unprecedented situation will have but nothing can stop one from making
hypotheses. For once, no one is thinking about bypassing the outcome
of the vote (at least for now). Such was not the case after the French and
Dutch referenda on the 2005 European Constitution treaty: the Lisbon
Treaty was hastily finalised and adopted and it is considered to more or less
have had the same effects as the rejected Constitution. Today, it should be
noted that alternatives to the EU do exist for such or such Member States
and that the EU will have to carry on without such a heavyweight nation as
Britain. One of democracy’s tacit rules is to acknowledge that those voting
against your own convictions are no less informed and motivated than you
are. Britain would rather conceive its future apart from EU institutions and,
as a matter of fact, this probably is no leap into the unknown. Britain can
rely on its own history and feels its destiny as an island is prepared to make
new alliances with other nations than those from the continent. Is this an
illusion? Time will tell. For Britain to have a more productive economy by
cutting its organic bond of solidarity with the European economy or to
focus its power on the same resources is not a foregone conclusion. In
the globalisation age, what is the real status of a national economy? There
probably are various potential answers but the world image people have in
England and Wales is not exactly the same as the one people have on the
continent. Such is history and dramatic turns of event actually do happen.