William Hague
As well as reforming the eurozone, Brussels must build up collapsing African and Arab countries
I t was an unenthusiastic landslide. Emmanuel Macron has just been elected President of France by a wide margin, but more for what he is not than for anything he is known to be. He is not from the French political parties. He is not Sarkozy, and, above all, not President Hollande. He was the only mainstream candidate remaining against the National Front, who garnered a third of the votes of a disillusioned electorate.
Rejection of established leaders and policies was the real story of this election, in a country with slow growth, high unemployment, excessive taxes, obstructive trade unions and growing cultural divisions. Macron himself seems to recognise that he does not have long to show he can change things if he is not to join the list of rejected leaders, saying in the campaign that if Europe does not change then Le Pen will be the winner at the next election in 2022.
This is the correct analysis. Those who imagine that the populist tide is now defeated will be in for a terrible shock unless people feel much better about the future in a few years’ time than they feel today. In France, this will partly depend on whether the new president can win the seats in parliament and the acquiescence of unions for a programme of serious economic reform, reducing the size of the state and making it easier to do business.
In France, such reform is difficult enough. Yet there are two even bigger challenges that Macron, Merkel and other European leaders will need to confront rapidly if they are to prevent the disintegration of the EU and the rise of extreme parties across the continent: the unsustainable contradictions in the eurozone, and the possibility of migration towards Europe on a scale never seen before.
Macron has already identified the first of these challenges and said what he wants to do about it. He has called for the much closer integration of the eurozone, with a finance ministry and budget for the whole zone and the mutualisation of debt, which means Germany sharing the debts of all the countries in the euro. These would be important steps towards a political union alongside the monetary union, requiring countries like Italy to allow Germany to tell them how to run their economies in return for German taxpayers subsidising the rest of the eurozone to a far greater extent.
Without such reform the eurozone is heading for eventual crisis and break-up. Yet the problems with bringing it about are obvious – most people in the eurozone outside Germany do not want to give up what little control of their own affairs they still have, and Germans don’t want to pay for the others forever.
Macron will find a sceptical Berlin, telling him to put his own house in order first.
But even the eurozone is not the greatest threat to the unity of the EU. The crisis most likely to overwhelm Europe in the coming years and bring populist or nationalist leaders like Marine Le Pen to power is an uncontrollable rise in immigration from Africa and the Middle East. The population of these regions is expected to double over the next 30 years, which will be an increase of over a billion people.
Growing up in countries with poor leadership, inadequate opportunities, expanding deserts and sometimes internal conflict, it is predictable and understandable that many of those people will attempt to migrate to Europe. If so, the numbers involved will be far greater than anything seen so far. Two summers ago, the arrival of a million migrants had a huge impact, rocking the leadership of Angela Merkel, causing some EU countries to close their borders unilaterally and stretching relations between countries like Hungary and Poland and the rest of the EU to breaking point. But simple mathematics shows that a much bigger crisis is on the way.
In the corridors of Brussels and other capitals much time is spent on this issue, but always to find sticking plaster solutions, such as buying Turkish co-operation rather than a long-term strategy. There are no simple answers: a Trump-style wall, even if it were desirable, cannot be built around the whole of Europe.
This is an issue on which Britain actually needs Europe to get its act together, and should be able to help even as we leave the European Union. Staying ahead of it involves being very tough in some ways, and being generous in others.
The tough part is showing that European countries, including the UK, really can control who crosses their borders. That means having the resources and determination to destroy people-smuggling operations and deter people from risking their lives in crowded boats that are not seaworthy. It also means doing even more to integrate migrants who are accepted into the local economy and society – easier to say than to do but now of critical importance in averting future social divisions.
The generous part is doing quite a lot more to help the countries with such booming populations. All the evidence and experience suggests that where nutrition and education are provided, and diseases controlled, population growth slows down. Helping to vaccinate and educate children is the best way to stop numbers running out of control. Many EU countries think they can’t afford to join Britain in spending heavily on development aid. But the truth is that they can’t afford not to.
This is not just about aid. Britain and France have always taken the lead in saving failed states in Africa. When a country like Mali is prevented from falling into complete chaos, it’s because French troops drive there from their bases in the Sahara. When Somalia edges away from years of collapse, it’s because the UK takes the lead at the United Nations. Other Europeans need to do much more to help such efforts. And new ministers in Paris should recognise that on these vital matters, they will most certainly need Britain after Brexit.
Left to develop, the future migration crisis is the one that will break the Schengen zone, the EU, and the mainstream leadership of Europe. There is no sign yet that enough action is being taken to avert it. Macron should add preparing for this to his list of what needs to be done. If not, the populists, including Marine Le Pen, will be back with a vengeance.
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