I'm a remainer, how do you think your portrayal comes across? Even the mere financial contributions alone (net contributor) should be acknowledged and recognized as a force for good for the project during our tenure. Some countries also appreciated our counterweight to the French/German hegemony.

A Scandinavian politician one said, no matter what UK representatives achieved they would go back home to Sunday Mail news headlines about how they had failed, sold UK short and so one.

As a result, if EU offered X, UK representatives would argue that they must get at least X + 25%. During the 30 years this continued, it led to an atmosphere of distrust and aggressive behaviour that honestly the rest of EU was very tired of.

I know that I did. FWIW, if you're from any of the post 2004 members then the UK is the reason that the enlargement happened.

Additionally given that we'll all need security cooperation for the foreseeable it would be easier if that took place under the EU aegis.

But the irony of the 2004 enlargement is that is what primarily led to the UK voting for Brexit.

Yup, and it was predominantly driven by the UK trying to slow down integration.

But, because they pushed for enlargement, they then felt obliged to open their markets to the countries immediately, and that was definitely one of the drivers of the Brexit vote.

Things are smooth indeed. Without real opposition, Germany can further drag the continent down the stagnation and economic strangulation through austerity only it benefits from paths as it pleases.

Totally agree. I think also the Scandinavian countries were sad to see the UK go, as someone else has mentioned in another comment, it was a counterweight to German/French hegemony.

I have heard the opposite: that the United Kingdom was, as a rule, an important ally for the economic policies favoured by Germany and others. E.g., “So far the following EU countries have announced that they oppose Eurobonds: Germany, United Kingdom, Finland and the Netherlands.” on p. 186 in Schäfer 2012 = vol. 9.2 in EJCE = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/255726169_The_Sover...

Further more, the UK was an important net contributor.

So I think, on the whole, Brexit was bad for Germany.

Germany has pushed Britain out of the EU by allowing more than one million people in, at a time when the UK had a sensitive debate around the very issue that Germany created along with Russia. Russia pushed, Germany pulled. After that Germany has threatened countries with sanctions if they didnt agree to taking in the very people it welcomed against the wishes of member states. It knew exactly what it did, and it did it to push Britain out of the Union because it found it to its advantage.

EU is growing at interplanetary speeds since 2016.