A PRODUCT of myriad compromises, an amalgam of generations’ worth of visions, a form of government without precedent or parallel: the EU is a strange beast. Its uniqueness gives it a certain mystique. No one knows for sure how durable it is. Small wonder, then, that Britain’s vote in 2016 to leave gave some in Brussels nightmares. No member state had quit before. The departure process had only been codified in 2009, in Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon. Could this falling domino crash into the next: Denmark, perhaps, or even France? Could it create a precedent others might follow? Could it bring down the EU?

Television coverage of the Brexiteers’ victory on the morning of the result is said to have transfixed Angela Merkel. EU leaders were particularly worried that Britain would use the differing interests and outlooks of the remaining 27 member states to play them off against each other and thus secure generous terms preserving the benefits of membership without the costs. So they hurried to establish a common front. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, had surreptitiously telephoned heads of government before the referendum. Mrs Merkel invited several to Berlin in the days immediately afterwards. “We really feared the consensus would break,” says one Brussels official.

It did not. Leaders approved the guidelines for Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s chief negotiator on Brexit, with surprising ease and a round of applause. The line held even when, early this year, the focus of the talks shifted to the future relationship between the EU and Britain—where the scope for discord among the 27 was greater than on the initial divorce agreement. Some small differences have bubbled up. France is firmer than Germany on the need for a detailed declaration on the future relationship, for example. Poland recently suggested, albeit unsuccessfully, downgrading the EU’s insistence on an invisible border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. But in the corridors of the EU institutions cautious language about upcoming Brexit summits—a gathering of the European Council on October 18th and an extraordinary summit expected for mid-November—does not quite conceal the mood of satisfaction, or at least relief.

Some of it is justified. The EU moved fast to forge a consensus, and has maintained it. National representatives in Brussels report that Mr Barnier and Mr Tusk, sometimes with Mrs Merkel standing behind them, have deftly bound in the governments throughout the process. Mr Barnier is not always across the details, but Sabine Weyand and Stefaan De Rynck, his deputies, command them. The impression of professionalism and consistency grows when compared with Britain’s leadership, which has been characterised by over-confidence (launching the Article 50 process prematurely), vagueness (devising a Brexit proposal only this summer, over a year into the two-year process) and diplomatic missteps (demonising the EU and boasting of plans to divide and conquer it, forgetting that continentals can read British newspapers too). The unflattering contrast hardly encouraged Britain’s allies to spend political capital on breaking ranks.

Two factors in particular have curbed European fragmentation when they were expected to hasten it: proximity and populism. Those countries closest to Britain were initially assumed to be voices for emollience among the 27, as they would lose most from a harsh or chaotic Brexit. Yet often the Dutch and Danes are among the toughest in the room, discloses one country’s representative to the EU, as they would suffer most from a cherry-picking Brexit conferring unfair advantages on Britain. Meanwhile, the populist wave sweeping Europe has strengthened, not weakened, the resolve of mainstream leaders. The greater the threat from Eurosceptics, the more resolute they become that Brexit cannot be seen as a success for Britain. As debates on associated topics like migration have become more heated, the space and energy available for disputes over Brexit have shrunk.

Most important of all, the EU’s underlying cohesion has turned out to be greater than anticipated. Against a backdrop of squabbles over migration quotas or financial risk-sharing in the euro zone, politicians on both sides of the Channel underestimated the strength of the consensus on the EU’s basic business model. Membership comes with shared benefits that are founded on common rules and are not available to third countries. Support for the EU in the remaining member states has risen since the Brexit vote. Eurosceptic politicians such as Marine Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy have toned down their hostility to remaining in the club.

Muddling along

This happy revelation must be tempered by thoughts of what might have been. Britain’s exit is not a success for the EU. Its second-largest economy, one of its two serious military powers and the progenitor of the single market, is walking out because it felt it could not tolerate one-size-fits-all membership. In August 2016 Bruegel, a think-tank, published a paper proposing a new part-in and part-out “continental partnership” status that could keep Britain bound in but also pave the way to a more multi-tiered Europe. A more dynamic and confident organisation might have seized on the idea and used the opportunity to become more plural and versatile. The EU’s rigidity on such matters may help uphold its integrity in the short term, but in the long term it is also a handicap.

The Brexit talks, then, have held up a mirror to the EU. The logic of pooled sovereignty is too strong for Britain’s decision to have started a domino effect. But it is not so strong that the club can reinvent itself to accommodate a greater array of forms of integration. It will not fall apart, but only ever creeps forward, entirely satisfying few people yet remaining oddly resilient despite that. If an EU did not exist, someone would have to invent one—then, a few moments later, start grumbling about it.