Fraser Nelson:
Even when they fail to win elections, the opponents of a more federal Europe are getting their own way
By now, even the most ardent Brexiteer would have to admit that Michel Barnier is doing rather well. His job is not just to negotiate a deal but to make the whole Brexit process look so agonising that no other country would go through it. So far, so good: there is no clamour to join Britain in the queue for the exit. There is no shortage of European political parties who resent Brussels and its immigration policy, but they wish to stay in and reform the EU. Two years ago, that might have sounded hopelessly naive. Less so now.
It’s hard to keep pace with the changes on the continent. Not so long ago the Eurosceptic populists were seen as headbangers, howling outside the gates of the European citadel but having no chance of getting in. Then they started winning elections: in Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They were written off as political vandals, relative newcomers to this whole democracy business. This argument became harder to sustain when populists entered government in Austria. Then things changed utterly when Italy became the first major European nation to have supposed crazies actually in charge.
Look carefully and you can see the EU also changing. When David Cameron sought renegotiation he was sent away with almost nothing because the EU thought its rules were unmovable. This led to Brexit, and demonstrated the price of EU intransigence. The rise of populism underlined this point. Now you can see a Europe in flux: border controls in Denmark, Germany and France. We hear arguments, in the least likely quarters, that it’s time for national governments to have more power over immigration and policy in general. That the people should take back control.
Perhaps the biggest change has been the implosion of Angela Merkel. A year ago, she was the power behind the European throne: today, she’s on political life support. Her disastrous decision to admit a million refugees to Germany led to its own political harvest, with the Alternative für Deutschland now the official opposition. To buy them off – and stop Mrs Merkel’s ministers from resigning – the EU has had to draw up plans for asylum seekers to be processed in Africa, rather than Europe. Not so long ago, the very idea would have been denounced as heartless populism. Now, it’s EU policy.
When Cameron tried to change minds in Brussels, he failed abysmally. Times had changed, he said: free movement of people was agreed in the 1990s when migration levels were a fraction of what they had become. To cling to this now, as a matter of ideology, would surely threaten the European project itself. Cameron even brought a slide show demonstrating that, if he were given concessions on curtailing free movement, support for Brexit would plunge. He was met with a point-blank and pig-headed refusal.
Only now, with authoritarians or populists in power in several European countries, does Brussels pay attention. And only at the last minute, to save Merkel’s government from collapse, in a desperate and belated attempt to beat back the populist fire.
In Brussels, what reforms there have been are deeply controversial. Eurocrats tend to see popular pressure as something to be resisted, rather than assuaged. When Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, proposed a tougher Eu-wide immigration policy a few months ago he was attacked for being “antieuropean” by the EU Commissioner on migration. A bizarre accusation but still one that gets to the heart of it: the battle over what it means to be European. What needs to be done to keep the EU project together.
Emmanuel Macron, itching to take the European throne vacated by Mrs Merkel, has proposed his own agenda: that Brussels should have even more control, with harmonised tax rates, a Eurozone finance minister and budget. But this is proving too much even for the Germans. Ever the drama queen, Macron said he’s delighted to do battle with Matteo Salvini of Italy and Viktor Orban of Hungary. He envisages himself as the great liberal hero, fighting off Orban’s “illiberal democracy” – but for that he’d need an army. None is likely to arrive.
The man that Macron is more likely to contend with is a younger, shrewder politician: Sebastian Kurz, the 32-yearold Austrian Chancellor. Earlier this year he proposed an “axis of the willing” on migration with Germany and Italy, rather than wait for the EU to act. He’s a conservative who co-opts populists when it suits him (he’s in coalition with the anti-migrant Freedom Party) but drops them when it does not, as he demonstrated this week by agreeing to censure Orban for various constitutional violations. Kurz says he is liberal and pro-eu. And for these reasons, he seeks greater control over borders – and, quite possibly, a new European model.
The same trends can be seen at work all over the continent: established parties changing their priorities, emphasising the nation state and control over immigration. By the end of the Swedish election campaign last week, we heard the Liberal Party talking about the danger of Islamist free schools, the Conservatives decrying immigrant gangland murders and Christian Democrats discussing “honour repression” of Muslim girls in Sweden. Not so long ago, politicians talking in such ways would be accused of pandering to xenophobes. It’s a tougher form of debate, but it succeeded in keeping the populist Sweden Democrats at bay.
It’s odd to hear Mrs Merkel touted as a contender for European Commission president. Her model of running Europe has collapsed and it’s not yet clear what will replace it. Over the next few years, elections (starting with Bavaria’s next month) are more likely to support Kurz’s view of the world than that of Macron. It’s not that the populists will take over the EU: they’re still a rabble and struggle to agree on anything. But as other parties move to crush them, they’re more likely to underline the importance of the nation state, which will mean demanding a new European model.
This will mean more upheaval, with populism causing more chaos, before things start to calm down. Britain and the EU find themselves moving in the same way: towards greater sovereignty, liberty and democracy. Not a bad basis for a new partnership.