As the European Union struggles to resolve one of its worst ever
crises, the country presiding over the efforts to get European integration
back on track in the months ahead will be Britain,
traditionally one of the least enthusiastic supporters of the Union’s
goals of political union. In such circumstances, it might not be surprising
if the UK government regarded its six-month stint in the EU presidential
chair with distaste. And yet British Prime Minister Tony Blair is throwing
himself into the presidency with newfound enthusiasm, believing that
the crisis presents him with a unique opportunity to steer the future
of the European project in a direction much more to British liking.
It will not be easy.
As Britain took over the reins from Luxembourg on July 1, the debate in Brussels
was not so much over whether European integration was in crisis as over the seriousness
of the crisis and how long it would last. Plans approved by all 25 member states
for a new EU constitutional treaty have been brought to an uncertain halt by
voters in France and the Netherlands, and EU leaders are locked in a bitter dispute
over the future financing of an ever-enlarging Union. The most recent summit
meeting of leaders in the European Council ended in recriminations and mutual
suspicion.
Britain’s task is rendered even harder in that Mr. Blair will have to overcome
deep-seated suspicions of its intentions, especially in France. It is not as
if Britain is neutral in the disputes that are feeding the crisis. British voters,
if given their chance, would also almost certainly
reject the constitution, and the failure of the European Council in Brussels
in mid-June was widely blamed on the
narrow and intransigent stands taken by Mr. Blair and French President Jacques
Chirac in defense of their national
interests over the EU budget.
What’s more, for most of the past 30 years, the UK has been regarded by
many continental leaders as a somewhat “semi-detached” member of
the European Union. Britain has stayed out of the euro and the Schengen agreement
abolishing EU internal borders, and fought
frequent battles in Brussels against
the cherished European social model.
Successive British governments have been at odds with their European partners
over Europe’s political future,
culminating in the damaging split with France and Germany over Mr. Blair’s
support for the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Despite all this, Mr. Blair is latching onto the Presidency as something of a
godsend. He hopes to use it not only to advance his own conception of Europe,
but also to gain the lasting reputation for European statesmanship to which he
has always aspired. In his pre-Presidency
address to the European Parliament in Brussels on June 24, Mr. Blair displayed
a positive zeal for what he sees as his new missionno less than the modernization
of the European economy and root-and- branch reform of one of its most important “common” policies,
agriculture.
“
At the heart of
Mr. Blair’s approach
is acceptance of globalization and the need to adapt to it”
Mr. Blair acknowledges the depth of the crisis in the European Union. But he
insists that, “In every crisis there is an opportunity. There is one here
for
Europe now, if we have the courage to take it.” Looking to the future,
he told the Parliament, “if we agreed on real progress on economic reform,
if we demonstrated real seriousness on structural change, then people would perceive
reform of macro policy as sensible and rational, not a product of fiscal laxity
but of commonsense. And we need such
reform urgently if Europe is to grow.”
At the heart of Mr. Blair’s approach is acceptance of the reality of globalization
and the need to adapt to it rather than to seek protection from its impact. His
theme has been expressed even more bluntly by his arch political rival
and likely successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who recently
told bankers in the City of London, “Here in Britain, we have had to make
and continue to make hard, long-term choices to achieve stability, growth and
flexibility. Now to be globally competitive, the European Union must make these
long-term choices too.”
Of course, in preaching this gospel, Mr. Blair is fully aware of the serious
economic difficulties in France,
Germany and Italy in part because
of their failure to take the very steps he recommends to improve competitiveness,
free up labor markets and abandon outmoded protectionist policies. He also knows
that in large measure because of slow economic growth and unacceptably
high levels of unemployment his key critics over the Iraq war, Mr. Chirac
in France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Germany, are in dire political
straits. This is also true, however,
for Mr. Blair’s Iraq war allies, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy
and Dutch conservative premier Jan Peter Balkenende.
Mr. Blair is being careful not to name names in his critique of the
European Union’s failures. He has gone out of his way to insist that he
remains “a passionate pro-European,” dismissing the fears of integrationists
that he wants to reduce the European Union to a mere free trade area, and declaring
his faith in the “political project” of closer European unity. After
his speech to the European Parliament, some European politicians and important
sections of the European media praised the energy and sense of strategic vision
he displayed, and some even wondered whether a new political Messiah might have
arisen from the ruins of Europe’s collective political leadership.
Much of the British Presidency’s program will appeal to the dominant center
right in EU countries. Among
the UK’s priorities are getting “the best possible result” with
regard to the Doha round of trade negotiations at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting
of the World Trade Organization in December,
putting Africa at the center of global
development policies, pushing through more radical world action on climate change,
reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) and especially its
controversial sugar regime, structural economic reform, progress toward a
single EU market in services, and
cooperation among EU member states in the fight against terrorism and international
crime.
But in pursuing his European objectives, Mr. Blair must perform a difficult balancing
act to maintain political
backing at home, where his position has been severely weakened by a sharp fall
in support for his leadership in
Parliamentary elections in May. The
unabashedly pro-European tone of Mr. Blair’s speech to the European Parliament
raised eyebrows in Britain, where the largely euroskeptic media questioned his
apparent commitment to EU institutional reform despite the derailing of the constitutional
treaty. Indeed a Kremlinological reading of the Blair text suggests that he might
be willing to have many of the treaty proposals reexamined and presented again
for ratification in the member states at a future date perhaps after
the 2007 French Presidential
election. In this he may face the opposition of the more euroskeptic Gordon Brown,
who might even have succeeded him as Prime Minister by then.
As far as Mr. Blair’s EU leadership claims are concerned, however, could
it be a case of “cometh the hour, cometh the man?” Is it possible
to imagine Mr. Blair as a sort of latter-day John the
Baptist preparing the way for the
gradual “Anglo-Saxonization” of the European Union? There are signs
that
political developments in other EU countries may be moving in Mr. Blair’s
direction. If, as expected, the Socialist Mr. Schroeder goes down in defeat in
the German general election in September, his Christian Democratic successor,
Angela Merkel, may prove a more
sympathetic partner for the UK. She wants to put more stress on improving Transatlantic
relations, favors structural economic reform and has even talked about cutting
spending on the CAP.
“
Mr. Chirac will be seeking to regain
political points at home by obstructionist
tactics in Brussels”
A win by Ms. Merkel could
certainly help Mr. Blair in the remaining months of the British EU Presidency,
which lasts until December 31. It will not, however, remove the greatest single
obstacle to a successful British turn
at the EU helm, which is likely to be
inveterate opposition to British initiatives by Mr. Chirac, whose term does not
expire until 2007. Not only are Mr. Chirac and Mr. Blair openly antagonistic
in their personal relations, but Mr. Chirac has been deeply wounded by his defeat
in the French constitutional referendum and will be seeking to regain
political points at home by obstructionist tactics in Brussels. That is another
reason, in addition to the difficulty of the task, why Mr. Blair’s plans
for EU
reform must inevitably have a longer term perspective than the current British
presidency.
“
Among the biggest beneficiaries of EU farm spending are British royalty, aristocrats
and the landed gentry”
In London there are those who hope that Nicolas Sarkozy, the rising star of the
French center right, may succeed Mr. Chirac in 2007. Like Ms. Merkel and Mr.
Blair, Mr. Sarkozy is something of an economic liberal. In a recent interview
he said it was an “absolute and urgent priority’’ to create
jobs and push down unemployment from a five-year high in order to boost growth
in France,
Europe’s third-largest economy after Germany and Britain. “There
is not enough work in France and that is mainly because it is not rewarded, valued
and heralded enough,’’ Mr. Sarkozy said. “Rewarding and encouraging,
there is nothing more important to revive the French economy.’’
All three leaders also believe that
nation states should remain the dominant forces in the European Union and share
a distaste for anything resembling federal-style European political integration.
Might these developments create a new economically liberal, more inter-governmental,
less pro-integrationist European Union led by a British/
French/German troika? Such a troika might expect support on at least some contentious
issues of EU reform from the new member states in central and eastern Europe
and from the Nordic and Baltic countries.
Some skepticism is in order here. Claims that the UK, France and
Germany may soon be on converging strategic paths can be overstated. In the EU
budget debate, Ms. Merkel has
already had to dilute her commitment to farm policy reform mindful of
the
importance of rural lobbies to the
German Christian Democrats. Mr. Sarkozy has declared he supports Mr. Chirac in
the stand-off in which Mr. Chirac is demanding an end to Britain’s EU budget
rebate and Mr. Blair is
insisting that the rebate can only be
discussed if the CAP is reformed to
ensure big cuts in farm spending. This may explain why Mr. Blair has already
started to tone down his assault on the CAP, saying that he is only looking for
gradual change, to be decided at some point during the budget period 2007-2013.
There may be another reason why Mr. Blair is approaching CAP reform with care.
There is growing support for a ceiling to be put on the compensation farmers
are paid in recompense for the loss of production subsidies. At present, however,
by far the largest beneficiaries of CAP payments are the biggest landowners prominent
among them British royalty, aristocrats and the landed gentry. That was one reason
why Britain, not France, blocked a European Commission proposal to limit such
payments last year.
Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy will probably support a measured shift
toward more liberal and flexible EU
economic policies. But they are most
unlikely to sign up for the British
approach to social and environmental regulation. In fact, the Nordic approach
has greater appeal for the French,
Germans and others than Britain’s “Anglo-Saxon model,” characterized
by what are seen as poor social and public infrastructure standards. According
to the World Economic Forum, the Nordic countries top the world league table
for competitiveness and innovation, while maintaining very high levels of social
welfare and environmental sustainability.
As the economic debate gets under way, France, Germany and Britain, too, may
find themselves under pressure to adopt the Nordic approach. Such a
development would be popular among many of Mr. Blair’s Labour Party
supporters. But both Mr. Blair and Mr. Brown feel instinctively closer to U.S.
economic and social policies than they do to Nordic-style social and environmental
policies however successful the Nordic economies may be.
There are other problems. Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy are openly
hostile to admitting many more countries into the European Union a key
strategic plank in Mr. Blair’s EU policy platform. These differences are
likely to come to a head, though not immediately, over the negotiations on Turkish
EU entry due to begin in October. Both Ms. Merkel and Mr. Sarkozy have threatened
to veto full Turkish membership of the Union, although, with the accession talks
likely to last between five and 10 years, such a prospect lies relatively far
in the future. To complicate matters further, the mainly small and medium sized
central European countries are more
integration-minded than Britain. They share with other smaller EU countries a
suspicion of anything smacking of a
“
Political Directorate” of the big states running the Union.
All of this assumes that Mr. Blair will remain prime minister until close to
the next UK general election in 2009/2010. But this is very far from assured.
Mr. Blair has only managed to keep the open hostility between himself and Mr.
Brown within tolerable limits by promising, or appearing to promise, a handover
of the keys to 10 Downing Street to Mr. Brown well before the next election.
Before the crisis sparked by the “No” votes in the French and Dutch
referendums, it seemed that the handover might come later this year. Mr. Blair’s
domestic
unpopularity partly because of his
close relations with President George
W. Bush cost Labour two thirds of
its Parliamentary majority in the May elections.
By setting out a dramatic new European reform strategy, however, Mr. Blair may
be serving notice to Mr. Brown and his supporters that he intends to hang on
much longer. In this sense, Mr. Blair is in a desperate race against the clock.
He is looking for his place in the history books. After the traumas of the Iraq
war, he now sees a chance to write his political epitaph as the man who transformed
the European Union and finally
reconciled the British people to their
European future. But such a transformation will take a lot of time, more time
than Mr. Blair can count on. o
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Blair Seeks to Reshape EU