France more likely than Germany to lead the EU Council after Brexit, voting records in the Council show

With the Brexit process triggered, many observers wonder how the equilibrium of powers in the EU Council would change and who will be most successful in influencing the future EU legislation. VoteWatch Europe have looked at the voting dynamics over the past 7 years (over 22,000 votes of EU governments) to understand what was likely to happen after the United Kingdom left the European Union.

Analysis was based on the same dataset and methodology that indicated that the UK was increasingly outvoted in the Council in recent years, thus predicting the centrifugal policy orientation of the British government. These were the main new findings:

1. Coalition building dynamics seem to favour the countries that promote more EU integration
2. France, Italy seem in a better position to build majorities or blocking minorities than Germany
3. Poland has drifted away from the core of the EU in 2016-17
4. The Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark lose the most out of Brexit (they were UK's closest partners)
5. Political affiliations of the governments play a role, hence the results of the 2017-18 elections in France, Germany, Czechia and Italy are crucial for the future direction of the EU

First published in July 2016, this report has been updated to take into account the latest political developments.

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