With EU ratification, Brexit is here

The European Parliament voted in Brussels on Wednesday to ratify the withdrawal agreement that governs Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, which will formally happen Friday at midnight Brussels time.

The occasion was marked by speechifying and the singing of “Auld Lang Syne.” Some European legislators put up a sign reading, hopefully, “It’s not goodbye, it’s au revoir” — an “until we meet again.”

The vote — something of a relieved whimper rather than a bang, as its result was expected — brings to an end 3½ years of confusion, political division and missed deadlines. The vote passed 621-49, with 13 abstentions.

But for the EU, the loss of Britain is a significant defeat. It represents a loss of size, reach, momentum and permanence, comparable to Texas deciding to break away from the United States.

“Brexit is a defeat, a rebellion against the concept that working together makes Europeans stronger,’’ said Rosa Balfour, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

It also gives the bloc potentially less clout. “Any room the EU walks into, it will carry less weight than when the U.K. was a member — on trade, climate, defense,” said Paul Taylor, a senior fellow at Friends of Europe, a research institution.

At the same time, the shock of Brexit has produced a unity among the remaining 27 nations that is hard to find on any other issue — neither migration nor Russia, the budget or even the supposedly common currency, the euro. As they have negotiated with Britain, at least, the 27 have stayed together, much to London’s disappointment, and talk of other countries’ leaving the bloc has disappeared.

While Brexit originally caused panic in Brussels, it has turned out to be less of an epidemic than a vaccine, said Josep Borrell Fontelles, the bloc’s foreign policy chief. The process has been so chaotic and painful for Britain that even Europe’s populists have stopped talking about the likes of “Frexit,” “Nexit’’ or “Italexit,” referring to France, the Netherlands and Italy.

Because the European official who led the talks on the bloc’s behalf so far is now in charge of negotiating its future relationship with Britain, similar unity is to be expected. But it will have a defensive character, with Brussels intent on maintaining the integrity of the single market despite the desire to keep its large neighbor close.

The negotiations will be both complicated and limited, given the timing. The transition period, during which little changes despite the formal Brexit, runs only until the end of the year.

EU leaders like the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, have pledged, as she did this month in London, to “work day and night” to forge a close future relationship with Britain.

But the loss will ripple outward for years to come.

“It’s a defeat for everyone — for the European project, for Britain’s position in the world and for American interests, since the U.S. was the beneficiary of Britain in the EU,” said Ian Lesser, a former U.S. diplomat who is now the director of the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels office.

Britain acted as a sort of pragmatic balance between the more statist countries like France and the more frugal, federal ones, like Germany, Lesser said. “So Brexit will make some of the divisions in the EU more stark and difficult to manage.’’

Britain’s departure “changes the balance within the EU and creates a power vacuum,” said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The absence of Britain will make the relationship between France and Germany even more toxic,” he said.

“But it also destabilizes a lot of the countries, like the Dutch and the Nordics, on issues like the free market, anti-Russia policy and trans-Atlanticism,” Leonard added. “And it will further the imbalance between the eurozone and noneurozone countries, leaving those like Poland, Sweden and Denmark more exposed.’’

Central European countries, Turkey and countries hoping to join the bloc may also feel Britain’s absence.

“The Turks are quite concerned because Britain has been a friend in terms of Turkish integration, even if accession is not on the cards,” Lesser said.