Power matrix: Brexit and the eurozone Who has the most power ahead of this week’s summit.

Some EU countries are not like the others. The issues of Brexit and the eurozone — which will dominate this week’s EU leaders’ summit — make that clear.

At this moment in the Brexit negotiations, Ireland outranks even Germany and France because it will be hit hardest and other EU countries cannot force it to live with an outcome that threatens peace in any way, giving the island nation a rare chance at EU supremacy.

Hype about the Visegrad Group’s rise to power and prominence in EU decision-making falls flat once talk turns to the euro because Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic have no intention of joining the single currency.

This power matrix also reminds us that France is back, both politically and when it comes to policy the European Council deals with.

Strong executive leadership enables France to set the EU agenda ahead of its bigger neighbor Germany, which is stuck in caretaker government mode.

Other striking entries include the United Kingdom, which is powerless on Brexit as it’s not at the table, and powerless on the euro, because it never joined. Portugal gets relatively high marks because its finance minister, Mário Centeno, is now Eurogroup president, and the country is the U.K.’s oldest ally.

Estonia and Bulgaria enjoy larger-than-normal influence thanks to their Council of the European Union presidency roles in 2017 and 2018 respectively.

Most countries are stuck in the bottom left quadrant — a sign that their ideas, planning and size do not combine to make a critical difference to the direction of debate on either Brexit or eurozone reform.