Britain could find home in ‘revamped’ EU, says Macron
Steven Swinford, Henry Samuel
Peter Foster
BRITAIN could rejoin a reformed twotier European Union, Emmanuel Macron said yesterday, under plans for a “profound transformation” of the bloc.
Mr Macron said that he believes that despite the EU referendum Britain will be able to “find a place” in his “revamped” European Union.
The French president said that the EU has become “weak, slow and inefficient” as he set out plans to significantly deepen financial and political ties between member states.
He proposed that the 19-member eurozone should have its own finance minister, budget and parliament, as well as unveiling plans for a Europewide military “rapid reaction force”.
Mr Macron suggests that Britain and Eastern European countries, who are not members of the euro, could form a new outer group of EU members that would be allowed to enjoy a shallower form of EU membership.
His comments will raise fears among Tory Eurosceptics that pro-remain MPS will use the prospect of reform in the EU to try to undermine Brexit.
At Downing Street yesterday, Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, warned Theresa May that she had failed to make “sufficient progress” to break the Brexit negotiations deadlock.
Mr Tusk said that while the UK appeared to have ended its “philosophy of having cake and eating it” but Brexit remained a case of “damage limitation”. Senior Brussels sources, meanwhile,
Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, arrived in Downing Street yesterday. For those still wondering how the EU would react to Theresa May’s speech last week in Florence, Mr Tusk was helpfully unambiguous. “We will discuss our future relations with the UK once there is so-called sufficient progress,” he said. “I would say there’s not sufficient progress yet.” In other words: if Theresa May thought that the concessions she offered in Italy last week would be enough to unblock Brexit talks, she can think again.
The Prime Minister now finds herself in a precarious position over Brexit. Like the recipient of a scam email from a supposed Nigerian prince, she has responded positively to a demand for money only to find herself on the end of another demand. Meanwhile, the promised pay-off only recedes ever further from view. The question now is what to do about this situation?
One option is to give in, make another, larger promise of cash and a softening of terms, and hope that this time it is sufficiently generous to satisfy even the most grasping recipients. But apart from infuriating Leave voters, this could well prompt a split within her own Cabinet – and a potentially fatal split at that. Then there is the option of waiting for sense to make an appearance on the Continent, sense dictating that, with the German chancellor enfeebled by months of coalition wrangling and the French president Emmanuel Macron yesterday outlining an ambitious reform agenda for the EU, the last thing the bloc needs is a feud with a departing member that happens to be the world’s fifth biggest economy – and its largest trading partner.
The problem is that Britain’s Brexit position seems all too characterised by waiting and hoping. How much better it would be if, by preparing logistically, bureaucratically and economically, Mrs May was able convincingly to argue that her country could live with “No Deal”. Instead, while she declares when forced that we would walk away if necessary, few of the preparations needed to do so – at our borders, say – are made.
Much time has been lost, but that does not mean that more time should now be frittered away waiting for the EU to change its tune – even if Mr Macron believes it can. We will believe his “Great Reform” plans when we see them. Meanwhile, time spent in preparation is never wasted.