30 June 2016

The Reaction In Europe

Not all hard-line.

by Neil Tidmarsh

The immediate reaction from Brussels was the insistence that the UK must get on with it, and get on with it quickly.  European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and president of the European parliament Martin Schultz led the way, and the leaders of France, Belgium, Spain and Italy, and members of Germany’s Social Democrats, were right behind them: there were to be no concessions made to the domestic political challenges facing the UK; Britain must be taught a lesson, and a punishing exit was to be the beginning of it.

It was predictable and understandable.  Britain must suffer in order to discourage other referendums in other EU countries and prevent further disintegration. Populist Eurosceptic parties are calling for referendums in more than one member state.  France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, the Czech Republic – any one of them could be next.  Making an example of Britain is one way to disarm them.

Another is to tighten the bonds holding everything together and to push on with the project of political union.  Last weekend, the French and German foreign ministers put together a ten-page paper mapping out “a strong Europe in an uncertain world”.  Their proposals include a European security council, a military headquarters and a European prosecutor.  The co-authors say “Our two countries form the basis for an ever closer union of our peoples. We will therefore take further steps towards a political union in Europe and we invite the other European member states to join us in the endeavour”.

And yet this hard-line reaction was not the only one.

German chancellor Angela Merkel resisted the calls of her Social Democrat partners and pursued a more conciliatory path.  “Our goal should be to shape the future relationship of Great Britain to the EU to be close and co-operative” was one of her first statements.  With Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, she is suggesting a more relaxed approach to Britain’s triggering of article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, in order to give the UK government time and space to address the UK’s domestic political crises.  She is also suggesting the possibility of protracted rather than hurried exit negotiations.  German and Dutch diplomats persuaded Brussels to follow her lead, and at the summit dinner on Tuesday night the pressure was off Mr Cameron to start withdrawal talks then and there.

Angela Merkel is aware that German industry is a counter-pressure to the German hard-liners of the Social Democrat party who are demanding a swift and punitive exit for the UK.  Britain is a crucial market for German goods, and German industry doesn’t want to lose it.  “Everything must be done to allow the free movement of goods and services between Britain and the other European Union countries in the future” said Matthias Wissmann, president of the association of the German automotive industry.  “It will be in nobody’s interest to make the international flow of goods more expensive by erecting customs barriers between Britain and the European continent.”

Another counter-pressure to the Brussels hard-liners emerged when US secretary of state John Kerry advised EU leaders to stay calm and rational.  “I think it is absolutely essential that we stay focused on how in this transitional period no one loses their head, nobody goes off half-cocked, people don’t start ginning up scatterbrained or revengeful premises” he said after a meeting with Juncker and the EU’s foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini on Monday.

Elsewhere in Europe, voices were raised against the kind of reactionary plans for deeper integration proposed by the foreign ministers of Germany and France in their paper calling for deeper political union.  Even before the paper emerged, other European leaders were urging reform.  Greece’s Alexis Tsipras called for more democracy.  “The British referendum will either serve as a wake-up call for the sleep-walker heading towards the void or it will be the beginning of a very dangerous and slippery course for our peoples” he said.

And when foreign ministers from the EU’s six core member states (France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany and Italy) met in Berlin earlier this week to discuss the EU’s future and how to deter other protest votes, Poland called a rival meeting of Eastern European member states in Warsaw.  Austria and Spain joined the meeting, at which Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia expressed their fury at the way Brussels is handling the UK crisis and its plans for deeper integration, and announced that they would be drawing up a roadmap for a less centralised EU.  Even the six core members meeting at Berlin weren’t unanimous about using the UK exit as a spur for greater Eurozone integration; supported by France and Italy, the idea is nevertheless being resisted by Germany and the Netherlands.  Denmark and Sweden are also wary of it, to say the least.

Jean-Claude Juncker’s hard-line reaction was criticised, and even his position came under attack. The Czech foreign minister Lubomar Zaoralek said on television that Junker wasn’t the right man for the job, and the Czech government has demanded Juncker’s resignation, saying that he “bears responsibility for the people of the UK voting to leave the EU”.  Toomas Ilves, president of Estonia (which uses the euro) described Juncker’s behaviour as “abominable”. Juncker’s willingness to play the SNP against Mr Cameron has particularly alarmed EU diplomatic circles.  Central and eastern European states are calling for him to step down.  Even the chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, Norbert Rottgen, told him “not to push the British” and warned him against “emotional and impulsive” behaviour.

Perhaps Jean-Claude Juncker himself might be the first victim of his own hard-line punitive reaction.

 

If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.

Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the Shaw Sheet