New Statesman & Society leader, 15 December 1995
Throughout the European Union, politicians have lost any sense of vision for the continent – and in Britain, as the election approaches, it's even worse
After six months in which Europe has taken a back seat in British politics, this week's European summit has refocused attention on the future of the continent. For a month or so, the leading figures from the major political parties have been making keynote speeches about qualified majority voting, enlargement and the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the TV current affairs industry and the quality newspaper pundits have been working overtime to find Euro-rebels and Euro-splits.
It should surprise no one, however, that nothing new has emerged from all this. The parties' official positions and disagreements on Europe are well-rehearsed, and the supposed main talking-point of the summit, the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on European union, has long been destined to be a damp squib.
Of course, back in 1991, when the Maastricht treaty was negotiated, it looked as if the 1996 IGC might be something rather more important, a real battle between out-and-out European federalists and the rest over the very principles of the EU. Then, however, came the popular backlash against the whole European project in the Danish and French Maastricht referenda, and after that the collapse of the exchange rate mechanism (which was supposed to be the midwife of monetary union).
Subsequently, just about every government in Europe got cold feet. Neither the politics nor the economics of closer European integration seemed quite the priority after 1992. It became increasingly clear that only Germany, the Benelux countries and France were on track for EMU before the end of the century, with the rest either failing to meet the economic convergence criteria laid down by the Maastricht treaty (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland) or else unable politically to embrace the idea (Britain, Denmark). Meanwhile, the Euro-Keynesian dream of European Commission President Jacques Delors – in which an expanded EU budget com-pensated for the effects of EMU and gave a boost to growth on top of that – was scuppered by British intransigence. Long-promised reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU's biggest redistributive existing programme, got stuck in the mud of procedure.
As for the democratisation of the EU's political structures, well, all that really happened was that ancient national prejudices found new confidence. Britain and France were able to block serious consideration of Germany's plans for the expansion of the European Parliament's powers to make accountable the secretive intergovernmental and appointed elements of the EU set-up.
Which, roughly, is where we are now – with the addition of German jitters about giving up the Deutschmark, a serious French crisis that could force Paris to give up on meeting the Maastricht criteria for EMU, and a lot of hot air about enlargement eastwards (which should be a strictly long-term project). The next IGC will see very little constructive on the long-overdue democratic reform of the EU's political structures that it was supposed to address. So, except on EMU, which will inevitably be the subject of protracted argument, this week's summit is a photo-opportunity and little else.
The faltering pace of European integration has had a marked effect on British politics: both major parties have adopted significantly more sceptical rhetoric on Europe in the past three years. It has been most noticable on the part of the Tories, whose Europhobes appear to have won the battle for the party's ideological soul (even if their representatives have been marginalised in the cabinet). But Labour, too, has taken a step away from its Euro-enthusiasm of the early 19905 since Robin Cook became shadow foreign secretary. Labour's "yes, but" and the Tories "no, but" have a lot in common: "perhaps" to EM U, a vague commitment to E U enlargement, no to big increases in the European Parliament's powers. All that is between them is the social chapter and disagreement on the extension of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers.
This is perhaps understandable in the light of the internal politics of the two parties and the scepticism clear in the opinion polls. (The latter is a particular problem for the Tories because of Sir James Goldsmith's promised intervention in the next election.) But it also has a detrimental effect on the European debate in British politics. Labour's sceptical turn means that the left's case for much closer European integration is now rarely made. What Europe desperately needs is a counter-cyclical and redistributive EU economic policy, based on a massively increased EU budget, and, to control it, a giant increase in the powers of the European Parliament. But it will never get it unless someone starts trying to persuade the public of its merits.
