The Myth of Germany's EU Dominance

The latest sign that the U.K.'s exit from the European Union is not impossible is an editorial in the British tabloid, The Sun, which refers to the EU as a "relentlessly expanding ­German-dominated federal state." It's as useless to fact-check pro-exit campaigners as it is Donald Trump -- their arguments are emotional, not factual -- but it's worth asking whether the bloc is really dominated by Germany in any malignant way.

In 2011, right-wing journalist Simon Heffer wrote a column in The Daily Mail warning of the rise of a "Fourth Reich" -- a new German attempt to conquer Europe in the aftermath of its debt crisis. Heffer interpreted Germany's calls on other European countries to balance their budgets and coordinate economic policies as a first step toward "a fiscal union that will leave Germany dictating the financial terms for the rest of Europe."