Impact of Brexit on Germany: Economic, Political, and Social Consequences

The integration of Germany into the European Union has brought about significant impacts on the country's economy, politics, and culture. Economically, while some sectors may face unavoidable impacts, German economists believe that changes will be manageable for the EU and Germany. The Euro also brings economic benefits to Germany by reducing international trading costs and protecting against excessive exchange rate volatility. Politically, Germany is poised to play a central role in the EU, potentially leading to concerns about hegemony if it does not accept this responsibility. Socially, integration has made travel across borders easier, promoting cultural norms and social exchange between member states. Culturally, while there have been challenges in forming uniform practices, Germany's cultural policy has helped promote its culture globally. Overall, the impact of Germany's integration into the EU is a mix of positive and negative effects, with potential for further changes in the wake of Brexit.

Running head: GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
Germany and European Union
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
Introduction
The following essay determines to pull the different facts into discussion like the impact
of the European Union and euro on Germany. Germany has been a major member of the
European Union for many years and they have contributed to the growth of the continent in a big
way. It is indeed very significant because a continental union like the European Union has to
depend on the contribution of its member countries so these countries can prosper and bring
improvement into the regime of Europe. It is an obvious fact that Europe is one of the most
progressive continents in the world and they have many responsibilities to perform. This is how
the backward countries can see the light of development. In order to complete this essay, it is
important to understand the boundaries of EU and the kind of works they have to perform to
keep the countries united. The impact of euro on Germany has to be discussed in this piece of
essay as well.
A brief about EU
It is indeed important to attain a brief overview about the European Union since EU is a
major governing body that confirms the policies of their member nations (European Union -
European Commission 2017). Some major nations and leaders are the people who control the
proceedings of this institution. This union is mostly an economic and political union. EU
members 28 member states in total. The headquarters of this institution is located at Brussels in
Belgium. They have applied a standard system of laws that are maintained by their member
states. This union has the responsibility upon it to ensure the facts that the people who belong to
its member states can be able to move freely within the other member states. Some other things
will have to be maintained like the goods, services and capital can be transferred within the
internal market of the country.

2GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
EU has applied some of the legal regulations so that it can be enacted in all the member
states of the union. These legal regulations and frameworks can be maintained in case of justice
and home affairs, trade policies, agriculture, fisheries and the regional development of the
country. The largest city under this union can be considered as Paris after United Kingdom
decided to get out of EU through Brexit (Dhingra et al. 2016). The currency that is used by the
members of the EU members is Euro. The trade affairs are managed by using this currency only
internally. EU has formed a huge internal market through their institution. The current President
of the European Union is Donald Tusk (European Union - European Commission 2017)
Germany in European arena
Germany is one of the leading countries in Europe. Germany has a new formed strength
in Europe and they are intending to exercise a kind of leadership on Europe. After the departure
of Great Britain from the EU, Germany has become one of the leading and most dominant forces
in the EU (Richardson and Mazey 2015). The European foreign policy is determined by the EU
and Germany has to be a major part of it to decide upon the policies of the foreign policies
(Keukeleire and Delreux 2014). The other member states of EU are quite nervous about this
because they believe that the emergence of Germany as the deciding power might endanger their
existence within the European arena. Others have high expectations about Germany that
Germany can lead the way for a better future of Europe in the coming years (Richardson and
Mazey 2015).
Economic Impact
The inclusion of Germany in the European Union exposed the German market to the
external world, especially to the member states of the union. Moreover, it made it easy from

3GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
Germany to grow economic relation with the European member states enabled Germany to grow
rapidly and recover from the impact of the Second World War. The latest modification in the
European Union for Britain leaving has great impact on Germany over different sectors. It
caused negative economic impact on overall European countries especially Germany causing a
considerable falls of German GDP growth. This is supported by the DIW calculation. Moreover,
the German exports of goods to the UK territories are also hampering due to this modification in
European Union. These were the direct effects that are faced by the country that are possible to
calculate (U.S. 2017). Besides these measured impacts, there are indirect impacts that can affect
this change, where the FDI comes first (Chassany et al. 2017; Smith, K.E., 2013). A declination
in the FDI might occur followed by price effect and turmoil in finance market. Brexit is
responsible for a number of uncertainties in the economic changes in Germany. However,
German economics ministry provides assurance about the changes that might come in near
future. According to their calculation, the changes will be manageable for European Union and
Germany even though, some of the sectors will face sever unavoidable impacts (MARTIN
2017).
Euro on the other hand brings economic benefits for Germany in multiple ways. It
reduces international trading cost of the country, and also ensures protection against the
excessive exchange rate volatility (Stiftung 2017).
Political Impact
Though, the German Ministers can assure to withstand any financial turmoil, the political
scenario is quite different from the previous one. It has potential to disrupt the political scenario
for the upcoming years. Britain out of the union leaves a position open in the union. Brussels

4GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
suitability as a candidate to head the campaign is questioned by the German politicians. Brussels
out of the way, the second politically stable state to take the lead of the union is Germany.
Germany must play central role calculating the political weight of the country. The increase in
the decision making for the European Union will drastically increase. This will position
Germany in the focus and give them the power that many think will be more vulnerable to
charges of hegemony. However, if the country rejects to accept the power, a vacuum will occur
which will require to be filled by the nations like France. However, that is unlikely to happen
ensuring the German supremacy in the European Union (Hix and Høyland 2011).
Social Impact
European Union follows an integration policy to form the social policy for the member
states. It means the union makes it easy for the member states to travel across the boundaries
without facing trouble. This made it easier for the country to learn and integrate new social
norms in the German culture. Moreover, the union made the country an open market for all the
member states. It exposed the German society to the international market. It helped in promoting
the social norms of German society to the external culture. The continuous business between the
European Union and Germany caused an exchange and integration of social and cultural norms
between them. An example could be sited in case of food. The German food is now known to
nearly all the European States and also outside the Union boundaries. Similarly, a number of
traditional foods of the member countries are integrated within the German society and are
consumed by the German society in a regular basis. Passing of a number of decades made it
indistinguishable to indentify and separate these foods from the tradition German ones.

5GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
Cultural Impact
The European Union faced challenge in forming a uniform cultural practice among the
member states. Germany has come up with a cultural policy that was desired to be followed by
the member states of the union. Language, sports, arts are the core issues that are faced by the
member states. Germany faces similar issues like the rest. For instance, the Union states that the
members of the representative countries require to be multilingual and it needs to be
implemented on every citizen of the country. This is a bit unethical for the countries and
Germany is facing trouble meeting the requirement. The intervention of European Union in the
respective cultural aspects made it problematic for the country to keep balance with (Spolsky
2012). It is impossible to make it mandatory for all the citizens to learn all the languages
proposed by the union. The German sees this issue as cultural discrimination as the English is
among the 23 languages that are made mandatory for all the countries in the European Union
(Krzyżanowski and Wodak 2011). Similar questions came up from a number of other member
countries also. However, the inclusion made it easier for the German to promote their culture to
the states like Britain, France and other important countries that have been focus of attraction
worldwide. German culture hence received a platform to spread their culture around the world.
Similarly, the world culture came into contact and the culture adopted some of their culture to
increase the efficiency of the society
Conclusion
There are a number of modification took place due to the integration of Germany in the
European Union. Some of the impacts proven to be negative and some are positives. The cultural
policies that were imposed on the member countries prove to be dissatisfactory for the country
and it obviously disrupted the flow. However, the exposure to the international market benefited

6GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
the country in a number of ways. The recent modification in the EU with the Brexit placed them
in a powerful position. Though, some negative impact on the economy is also evidenced in the
research.

7GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
References
Chassany, A. (2017). How will Brexit result affect France, Germany and the rest of Europe?.
[online] Financial Times. Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/2b75023a-371d-11e6-9a05-
82a9b15a8ee7 [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].
Dhingra, S., Ottaviano, G., Sampson, T. and Van Reenen, J., 2016. The impact of Brexit on
foreign investment in the UK. BREXIT 2016, p.24.
European Union - European Commission. (2017). European Union. [online] Available at:
https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].
Hix, S. and Høyland, B., 2011. The political system of the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan.
Keukeleire, S. and Delreux, T., 2014. The foreign policy of the European Union. Palgrave
Macmillan.
Krzyżanowski, M. and Wodak, R., 2011. Political strategies and language policies: the European
Union Lisbon strategy and its implications for the EU's language and multilingualism
policy. Language Policy, 10(2).
MARTIN, W. (2017). This is how catastrophic Brexit could be for Germany. [online] Business
Insider. Available at: http://www.businessinsider.in/This-is-how-catastrophic-Brexit-could-be-
for-Germany/articleshow/52764416.cms [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].
Richardson, J. and Mazey, S. eds., 2015. European Union: power and policy-making. Routledge.
Smith, K.E., 2013. European Union foreign policy in a changing world. John Wiley & Sons.

8GERMANY AND EUROPEAN UNION
Spolsky, B. ed., 2012. The Cambridge handbook of language policy. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Stiftung, B. (2017). [online] Available at:
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=609C25171DBE0F89C0FAE6562F978
1D1?doi=10.1.1.374.7294&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].
U.S. (2017). Brexit impact 'manageable' for EU economies: German government study. [online]
Available at: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-economic-impact/brexit-impact-
manageable-for-eu-economies-german-government-study-idUSKBN18T1CL [Accessed 12 Oct.
2017].