Defensive and troubled EU is out of date in a fast-changing world
Only a few weeks ago, a 51 year-old mother from the Morbihan, Jacline Mouraud, who describes herself as “une chanteuse et chercheuse d’ectoplasmes” posted a rant on social media. Over the following days she accumulated at least six million supporters. Opinion polls suggest 70% of French opinion is with her.
So was born the “Gilets Jaunes” movement which for the second weekend running has fomented widespread disruption throughout France and dominated national news channels. The Gilets Jaunes show their solidarity by wearing the high viz jacket, that every French motorist has to carry on the dashboard of their car. If they take to the streets, they wear their gilets. They see themselves as representing la France periferique, the country and the middling suburbanites who attempt to get by on very little.
Mme. Mouraud’s beef, “la goutte qui a fait deborder le vase”, was the most recent proposed increase in fuel tax, nominally imposed to encourage French motorists to adopt more eco-friendly vehicles. She has played into the increasing disillusionment with President Macron, who has been successfully branded as the president of the rich and, as a result of the hugely diverting Benalla affair, someone guilty of cronyism at the very least. Any reputation the president had for competence has been trashed by his losing two respected cabinet ministers, and, in the case of his minister of the interior, struggling to find a convincing replacement. Although he won two important battles over employment regulations and the railway workers in his first year of office, unemployment remains stubbornly high and economic growth stubbornly sluggish. He faces a much more difficult battle in coming months over his promised pension reform. His perceived jupiterian arrogance therefore appears hardly justified to those living at the foot of his Mount Olympus.
Small wonder that his opinion poll ratings have dropped to the low twenties, on some measurements lower than Mme. Le Pen’s, who herself has hardly had a successful couple of years politically. Many observers think that this spring the Euroelections will provide the French electorate with the opportunity for a free hit against the president without risking bringing Mme Le Pen to office at home. She is expected to win well, with a number of left wing eurosceptic candidates joining her and her renamed party in Strasbourg.
The French believe fervently in their own exceptionalism. However, in their disillusionment with the centrist duopolies that have dominated post-war Western Europe they are not alone. The Swedish Democrats racked up over 18% of the vote in the recent Swedish election. Spain is far from resolving its Catalan crisis. Italy is governed by an odd couple of a coalition which, were there to be another election, would probably be re-elected with an increased majority. Austria led the way in electing a distinctly right wing coalition. The Visegrad Four are governed by nationalist governments whose quarrels with Brussels seem to be supported by a majority of their electors. Gerd Wilders’s PVV is running a close second in the Dutch opinion polls. Greece seems to be looking at a renewed financial crisis.
And Germany, the star economic performer of the Eurozone, benefitting as it does from an undervalued currency and a powerful economy designed for the late 20th century, still has not, as we had all hoped, put its demons of the past to bed. It is facing a period of increasing political uncertainty. While the CDU declines and the SPD melts away, the Greens and the AfD are on the rise.
All this threatens a perfect storm for the European Union and those for whom it is an article of faith. Just take two examples.
The new European Parliament will need to approve the new Commission. That might not be prove altogether straightforward if the Euro-electorates do not return a majority of centrists. An extension of the present Commission’s term as a caretaker measure would hardly add to the EU’s reputation for functioning smoothly.
Tactically, Brussels had little option but to reject the Italian budget proposals, but its rejection compares ill with the slack it has cut France over the years, suggesting there is one rule for the powerful who are Germany’s allies and another for Mediterranean types who do not toe the line. If the Commission and the Germans do the sensible thing from their point of view and patch up a face-saving compromise, the effects will still be unhelpful to the Union. However, if the Commission shows the same level of incompetence and vindictiveness it has shown in the Brexit negotiations, it will be faced with the prospect of Italy crashing out of the Euro. This it cannot allow as all its efforts would then have to be directed at preserving the equilibrium of the houses of cards that are the Target 2 balances. The level of emerging market dollar denominated debt held by southern European banks would only make things worse.
A new polity that spends its time defending itself from outside attacks can benefit from a feeling of “us contra mundum.” One that is forced to circle the wagons to defend itself from sustained and varied internal attack hardly inspires confidence in its future. Instead of leading a team of nations in the realisation of a universally approved vision, the EU spends its time firefighting: abroad with its nominal ally America and its aggressive supplier of energy, Russia, and at home. Yet it obstinately refuses to reform itself, even though it itself admits reform is necessary.
This is the behaviour of an ancien regime. And it is the behaviour of an ancien regime faced with the transfer of global economic power to East of Suez and, with the exception of the United Kingdom, the relative decline of the intellectual power houses that enabled Western Europe to dominate the last three centuries.
Were the nations of the EU to rise above Theresa May’s supine performance and show enough confidence in their own future to negotiate as between equals, we could come to an agreement which would enable the UK and the EU to coexist to our mutual advantage. Instead, they are so worried about their own future that they dare not yield an inch and insist on trying to humiliate the one nation on earth that could help them out of the hole they have dug for themselves. As a result, the United Kingdom looks like having to choose between taxation and lawmaking without representation and an unnecessarily costly transition to what will in the end turn out to be a prosperous future.
May and her advisers have much to answer for, but so have the Commission and the architects of the EU. They are building a Union designed for the 1960s in a world changing faster than at any time since the 16th century. They clearly do not understand how dangerous this is. I suspect I would not agree with Mme Jacline Mouraud’s politics, but it at least sounds as though she does understand.
Lord Salisbury is chairman of Reaction