EUROPE WILL FIGHT BACK

It is clear from several recent news items that many of the leading figures in the EU now realise that the EU is under attack and while the threat from the East is obvious it is probably less actually threatening than that from the US. There is a growing sense that the EU must reform, not in the direction of a looser arrangement, but in the direction of cohesion and clear leadership. With Britain out this kind of reorganisation should be much easier since the UK always tried to block any such move. With this mood growing, a great deal will depend upon the elections in several EU countries this year. How outspoken will pro-EU people be? Perhaps a good deal more so than heretofore. The stridency of debate in the USA is likely to catch on. People like Guy Verhofstadt, who will be a leading negotiator in the Brexit talks, are not ones to mince words and he has recently published a book proposing a much closer European Union. I think this is now almost certain to happen. It may be that some countries will drop out, but that will not stop it and those that remain could potentially be formidable. The first real test of a newly galvanised European resolve will, unless something even more dramatic happens first, be the Brexit negotiations and the fact that these come hot on the heels of Trump's victory in the US probably means that the EU will take a firmer line than they might otherwise have done. The importance to Europe now of showing that leaving does you no good is much greater than it was a month ago.

On basic principles, nation building generally requires an outside enemy or several such. I have been predicting for a few years that there would be increasing tension between the US and the EU and now it is happening in real time. Each day it grows. For those who wish to drive forward the unification of Europe, this is exactly what they need. By leaving, the UK puts itself at the mercy of the US, and daily the US more and more shows its anti-EU attitude. 

I think we are likely to see reform toward majority decision making, rearmament, and a centralisation of European institutions. The current resurgence of nationalism will fade as more and more leading figures take up the rhetoric of "Europe under threat" with the subtext "United we stand, divided we fall". I was thinking that this might not happen fast enough to affect this year's elections and that the extreme right (fascists) might get in in what for them must seem a rare moment of opportunity, but things are now moving much faster - as sometimes they do. It seems very likely that we are now at one of those dramatic change points - like the fall of the Iron Curtain - when many dominoes fall one after another. If the fascist tide can be resisted then Europe will be in a position to present itself to the world as the leading haven of truly civilised values.

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  • Brexit is just about to be triggered and the EU is suddenly looking more confident. The pendulum swings. The election in Netherlands is now being seen as something of a watershed. Elections in France and Germany seem likely to return even more strongly pro-Europe governments. Current economic indicators for the eurozone are stronger than for some years past.

    This week, Brexiteers are pointing to Qatar and China saying they will invest billions in UK as being a sign of international confidence in Britain, but actually it is simply the fact that now that the pound has fallen, buying up British assets comes much cheaper for those overseas who have surplus foreign currency looking for a resting place. This is not really investment - more speculation. The fact that it is being taken as a sign of strength rather than weakness is itself a sign of how the media are going to try to shepherd public opinion through the coming two years. A panic of "we did the wrong thing" half way through the negotiations would not go down well.

    It is an irony that one of the things that the UK did contribute strongly to within the EU was the idea that it should expand into East Europe, which it did. Now it is rejection of those East European people who choose to move west that has been one of the main drivers of Britain deciding to leave and put up new immigration barriers.

    Immigration figures for the months since the referendum are showing that immigration to UK has already dropped, though from Romania and Bulgaria it has increased. The drop has been mostly in that the number of people with degrees and qualifications has dropped off sharply. It remains to be seen what will happen when Britain really does have control of its own borders again.

  • And after the Dutch election, what now for Europe?

    The US would, it seems, prefer the EU to fall apart and China, according to a recent statement by its prime minister, very much hopes it will stay together and become more integrated. Why the difference? Basically because the US wants to dominate the world as a single super-power and China prefers to see a multipolar world emerge. In trade, the US would rather be in a position to pick off the EU countries one by one whereas for China is it much more economical to deal with them en bloc. Russia would prefer either that the EU fall apart or that it become friendly to Russia. Either would serve them fine, but the present united hostility is troublesome.

    So what will actually happen? There are many competing influences but for now I will stay with the view that I have held for several years that, notwithstanding many ups nd downs, the EU will continue to integrate.This process will get a major boost with this year's elections. The media seem to be obsessed with the threat of disintegration and the rise of the extreme right, but just as in Netherlands, the elections in France and Germany will surely yield victories for the pro-Europe forces and the media hype in the other direction will only make these victories seem all the more significant. This will give new momentum to the EU project. It is not impossible that we shall hear EU politicians, in a year's time, saying, "Brexit has to be dealt with but it is not our priority. We are too busy getting on with taking the EU forward."

    There is much talk of a "two speed Europe" at the moment and if this happens it would probably be a good thing. Despite all the rhetoric about equality, stability in a polity generally depends upon some degree of hierarchy because it gives direction. If what emerges is a core group of more integrated countries (say, Benelux, France, Germany, Italy plus one or two others) and a periphery of on-the-way countries, this would tangibly demonstrate where the union is going, would enable the snags of integration to be ironed out before being applied to all countries and would give a dynamic to the whole process. Too much equality can be just as stagnant as too much disparity. The art is to keep it in a moderate range, sufficient to encourage movement and progress.

    However, whether one speed or two or three, if the EU can hold together - and I think it will - geography will ensure that it moves ahead economically. The EU as a whole is a larger economy (in GDP) than the USA. Without Britain it will fall into second place, but it will surely return to the top by small degrees once again. Of course, it is always difficult to know what the true position is. You only have to look around you to see that most West European countries are more solid than any on the other side of the Atlantic. The density of organisation is greater. This means that Europe tends to move rather slowly, but it also means that gains are solid. In a less densely organised system there can be rash money making schemes that are here today but gone tomorrow. The latter boosts GDP but shows no real gain in the longer term.

    The EU will continue to build connections with China and, I predict, will, sooner or later, change its orientation toward Russia. This latter I predict on the grounds that (a) EU will be less reliant upon US, especially with UK gone, (b) there is a natural complementarity between the economies - Russia has resources the EU needs and the combined market would be huge, and (c) strategically it makes much more sense to have a friend on your border than an enemy.

    The US is fighting a rearguard action against the emergence of a multipolar world - well four poles really in the foreseeable future (US, EU, Russia & China; with UK, Japan and India as the next tier, as it were), but this is hardly likely to succeed. America will remain a great country, but one among others. It will lose the right to send drones to kill who it likes whenever it likes. The dollar will probably cease to be the dominant currency in world trade. They will learn to spend a bit less on arms and a bit more on welfare. They might experience all this as a climb down, but I think everybody in America should actually be happier at the end of the day - as well as all the rest of us.

    Meanwhile the EU will gradually become more powerful militarily and economically. At present this is a good thing, but one hopes it does not go too far. A bit more integration, a bit less of internal boundaries - all to the good. All in all I am optimistic for the world. Of course, at the same time, there are major global scale problems, especially ecological, to deal with, but to tackle them we need to be a happier and more cooperative world.

  • Grexit of Not

    The battle for Europe now seems to be once again centring upon Greece and whether it should withdraw from or be expelled from the euro zone. We are all aware of the great economic problems facing Greece. Surely, if those in power in the leading EU countries actually believe in the EU then the solution is for the EU to directly invest in infrastructure that benefits Greece and connects it to the rest of Europe. There must be any number of public works projects that could have the ffect of restoring Greece to economic health and, at the same time, making Greece a greater benefit to the rest. Perhaps they should build a bridge across tha Adriatic and put in a high speed train link from Rome to Athens or make some major investment in holiday facilities in the Greek islands. The Central European Bank would surely get a better return on its money in the long run by investment of this kind then from endless bailouts that can never be paid back.

    When one's neighbour is in trouble, one goes to their aid. Ideally one does so in a manner that helps everybody. If that costs some time, money and energy - well, that is what life is about. The same principles apply internationally as they do between neighbours in a village.

  • There is a huge amount at stake for Europe this year. With the various scheduled elections, by the end of 2017 major EU countries could be in the hands of populist nationalists who are anti-immigrant and want to rip up the EU and go back to a patchwork of nation states in competition with one another, or they could be in the hands of enthusiasts for further EU integration driving forward plans for a federal USE. We certainly live in interesting times.

  • The advent of Donald Trump and his performance is having an impact. I would say that the extreme right, that was so bouyant recently, is now losing ground. We shall see for sure in the elections this year, but I think they have peaked and now that people are seeing what populist government actually looks like, many are having second thoughts. Since Brexit and the American election, the popularity of the EU has risen in UK and also in most EU countries. If the Brexit referendum were held now the Remain camp would almost certainly win, which makes the current carry on in the UK parliament seem very strange. MPs are voting against their better judgement in favour of a course of action that the majority of the public no longer supports. That is an absurdity, though I notice that Theresa May has now said that Britain could still be an EU member beyond 2019 which is a new position - perhaps she is trimming her stance in the light of shifting public opinion.

    The evident negativity of the new US government toward Europe is making EU governments and populations generally more conscious of what they have got and could lose. Being a supporter of DT and TM will not necessarily do Marine Le Pen as much good as she hoped it would. This is a high stakes game and, as Bob Dylan once said, "the wheel's still in spin".

    In general, is it not so often the case that we do not value what we have until there is a possibility of losing it - or until we actually have lost it? Things proceed by action and reaction, rather than by cumulative addition. This, of course, is well described in the ancient Chinese classic the I Ching.

  • I was amused by this snippet from the BBC site....

    Meanwhile, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite appeared to cast doubt on the UK's ambition of being a bridge between the US and Europe.

    "There is no necessity of bridges," she told reporters. "Because today we mainly communicate with the US on Twitter."

  • Thanks, Mo. Let's hope so.

  • It is refreshing and encouraging to read your words David. I like to think that those working on reforms within the EU, such as Guy Verhofstadt, will gain support, resulting in the strengthening and centralisation of European institutions. I have a sense that things are moving in that direction and I see this as one of the advantages of Brexit. I believe it has been a wake up call for many to take more responsibility as individuals, in understanding the present world and deciding how we wish to take part in the support of civilised values.
  • Once out of the EU the UK will have to cut taxes, especially those on business and on the wealthy, otherwise it will lose many of its money making enterprises to mainland Europe. This will, of course have a knock on effect on spending. A fair number of people voted for Brexit thinking this would mean more spending on the NHS. The overall effect is likely to be the opposite. Out on its own Britain will have to compete harder and that inevitably means cost cutting.

    In foreign policy, UK will be dominated by the US. Tony Blair's "shoulder to shoulder" stance will seem bold by comparison when the UK is dealing with a country five times as big in population and ten times in military spending. (of the total amount spent on military in the world, 37% is by the US and Trump intends to increase this. UK 3.2%). The GDP of the EU is virtually the same as that of the US, though that will drop when UK leaves (which, presumably, is one reason the US wants the UK to leave). The EU spends a much lower proportion of its wealth on military than the US. Unfortunately, I would predict that that may be about to change.

  • Thanks for sharing all that Marianne. I feel very similar sentiments. In many ways the UK has been a barrier to the full development of the European ideal. The British in general have never seen the EU as anything more than an economic arrangement and have tried to get as much out of it as possible while putting in as little as they can get away with. That might well change now. The way things are going the Brexit negotiations could be quite brief amounting basically to "no deal". As soon as UK says no to free movement of people and to paying anything into the European kitty there will be very little left to talk about. But that leaves the UK pretty much dependent upon the US. However, it also, to a degree frees the rest of Europe from the US and the increasing sense in Europe that the US is no longer a friend is bound to have an impact. I think that you are right that the US may well try to lure Ireland away from the EU. I don't think that would make much difference to what happens in mainland Europe whichever way it went, except that it might increase hostility toward Trumpland. If you look at some of the little films on the internet of Guy Verhofstadt you get an interesting perspective. I think that Trump-May could be very similar to Reagan-Thatcher except that Britain is in an even weaker position now than it was then.

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