BRUSSELS — In the bitter breakup between Britain and the European Union, the Britons on Wednesday will finally file the divorce papers. But the 27 spurned partner nations of Europe may have far more at stake.
French leaders are fearful of their own insurgent anti-EU forces, who will chalk up any British gain from the divorce settlement as a reason to file exit papers of their own. Italian leaders are combating anti-establishment parties who may gang up to hold a Brexit-style referendum. And surging anti-EU campaigners elsewhere are eager to press any advantage they see from the negotiations, which will start after Wednesday’s formal notice from Downing Street.
The decision triggers a two-year clock before Britain drops down the EU escape hatch. In the meantime, the two sides will haggle over such matters as the cost of the exit — upward of $65 billion, the European Union says — and whether British retirees can keep living under Spain’s golden sun. The British are hoping that Europe will go easy on them to soften any hit to fragile economies. But with EU unity at stake, Brussels can hardly afford to be kind, leaders say.
The outcome may be a jarring wake-up call to British leaders who say that their nation has opted for a latter-day declaration of independence, one that will give the country back its rightful place as one of the world’s eminent powers.
‘‘The United Kingdom remains a partner of the Union, but by necessity it will pay the consequences, because that is the choice it has made,’’ French President Francois Hollande said Saturday at a pomp-filled ceremony in Rome marking the 60th anniversary of the treaty that laid the foundation for the European Union.
Hollande is trying to thwart the surging anti-EU leader Marine Le Pen, whose rat-a-tat nationalistic call to arms has made her the most popular politician in France ahead of presidential elections in April and May. Even if she ultimately falls short of the Elysée Palace, she will remain a ballot-box threat who will stiffen the spine of whichever French leader is charged with negotiating Britain’s March 2019 departure.
Leaders elsewhere in Europe are facing similar concerns — and in a bloc notable for its fractious disputes in recent years, they have been unusually unified in taking a tough line against Britain. Any new deal between the European Union and Britain will have to be ratified by all of Europe’s parliaments, giving extra leverage to the toughest holdouts.
‘‘In order to maintain Europe in the long term, but above all to strengthen Europe in the long term, we must preserve and defend the achievements of European integration,’’ German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the German Parliament last week.
It was a gentle but unmistakable reminder that Europe’s most powerful leader is committed to preserving club benefits for EU members — but cutting them off for those who no longer want to pay the dues.
It would be hard to overstate just how much Britain has at stake in the negotiations that will come after Wednesday’s divorce notice, known as an Article 50 notification.
The nation’s international trading relationships and laws will all be on the line when British negotiators square off with their erstwhile EU partners. Decades of EU integration have meant open access to European markets for British goods, services, and workers — and all of it will now need to be untangled over a brief window. Even Britain’s integrity as a single country could be in question if Scotland opts to hold an independence referendum, because Scottish voters favored remaining in the European Union.
Analysts think the downside cost of a bad deal — or, perhaps even worse, no deal — would be considerable. About half of Britain’s international trade runs through the European Union, and its trading relationships outside the bloc are governed by the body’s rules. Economists have warned that an unfavorable outcome for Britain could seriously harm the world’s fifth-largest economy.
But if Britons’ concerns are focused largely on their pocketbooks, Europeans are facing down a more existential threat: the possibility that the EU breakup doesn’t stop with Britain. The imbalance creates all the more incentive for European leaders to take a tough line.
‘‘This free-trade agreement cannot be equivalent to what exists today. And we should all prepare ourselves for that situation,’’ Michel Barnier, a French former politician who has been charged as the European Union’s lead negotiator, told regional officials last week.
‘‘If Brexit leads to a bright, prosperous future in the UK, that is something that could lead to a domino effect,’’ said Janis Emmanouilidis, the director of studies at the Brussels-based European Policy Centre, an influential think tank.
‘‘It clearly will have to be something which is not better than when they were inside the club. The red lines we have drawn, I think we will clearly stick to them,’’ he said.
