Where Goes the Centre of Gravity of EU Politics? The Legislative Decision-Making Post-Brexit

The United Kingdom, leaving the European Union, will most definitely change EU politics. Nevertheless, after eighteen months from the referendum on the UK’s EU membership and almost one year after the activation of the Article 50 of the Treaty we know very little about what exactly will the Brexit entail in terms of the type of future relationship of the UK and the EU, and more importantly, which direction the EU will take for its reforms advertised for some time already. While it may seem hopeless at this point to make projections what will happen to EU legislative decision-making after the UK leaves, this paper aims, based on the data on legislative decision-making in the EU Council and the EP during the current legislative term, to assess the possible direction of the position change of the key actors (member states’ governments and the EP political groups) who found themselves on the same side of the divisions with British representatives. Assuming that a number of political actors will lose a powerful ally across the EU policy space, the paper identifies both these actors and the policy areas most probably affected by the UK’s leaving the EU. Finally, the paper aims to contribute to the discussion on the direction of the power shifts within the EU as well as the possible policy drifts in near future.