Amid frescoes of feuding families, Europe’s leaders paint a lacklustre picture of harmony
Whatever your views on Brexit, there was no escaping the historic nature of the moment yesterday as, one by one, 27 European leaders trooped up to the rostrum to sign the Rome Declaration setting out a blueprint for the next decade of the European Union.
The absence of the British Prime Minister among the familiar crocodile of EU leaders brought home the real consequence of last June’s vote – consequences that will become yet more real on Wednesday when Theresa May hands over formal notice of the
UK’s intention to quit.
Remainers will have felt a pang of loss at the sight of Britain absent from the top table of European politics; leavers a frisson of excitement at what Britain might achieve once liberated from a dysfunctional political union.
And squabbles have indeed been on display as Europe tried to agree on a 1,000-word text that represents the common denominator of EU ambition.
The leaders proclaimed a Union that was “undivided and indivisible”, but all the calls for unity belied the reality that on most of the fundamental issues – on immigration and the euro, on budgets and bailouts and indeed on the pace of future union itself – there is precious little agreement.
After a decade of austerity and upheaval in the Middle East, Europe finds itself gripped by a resurgence of nationalism and divided from east to west, from north to south in a manner that has forced Brussels to confront the limits of its ability to over-write the desires of the nation state.
Poland and Hungary fume that Brussels tells them how to run their democracy, while impoverished Greece demands the same social rights and dignities for its pensioners as those afforded the rich Germans and Dutch. France stays stubbornly unreformed; Italy wants more help, too.
The frescoes of feuding Roman families in Michelangelo’s magnificent ‘Gone was talk of ever closer union, and in its place a tortuous promise to work at different paces and intensity’ Palazzo dei Conservatori on Rome’s Capitoline Hill therefore provided the perfect setting for the signing of a bloodless document that was made grey with the language of diplomacy and lacked a bold vision for the future.
Gone was talk of “ever closer union”, and in its place a tortuously constructed promise to work at “different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction, as we have done in the past”. A sentence that makes one dizzy just reading it.
Britain should take no pleasure from this, even if there is a temptation to say “we told you so”. Mrs May is right to wish Europe well, even if we’ve had enough; it is the destination, after all, for nearly half of Britain’s exports, the place where a million Britons live and work and where countless more do business and take their holidays.
What Britain should hope for instead is a new realism in Europe – a deeper recognition that the project needs rethinking along much more flexible lines if it is to accommodate the new political realities thrown up by austerity and terror.
As a host of global challenges bring national identity back into focus, it is apparent that the disquiet with the EU is not a public relations problem, as many in Brussels seem to believe, but something much more fundamental. To restore public confidence, Europe needs to give up on some of its grander designs, return more power to nation states, accept national differences and focus on collaboration between capitals on issues such as trade, climate change, immigration, dataflows and border security where there is a clear mutual interest.
In the end, failure to take a more pragmatic approach – including towards Britain’s request to be a good neighbour outside the EU after Brexit – is what presents the greatest risk to the EU as it contemplates the decade to come.