SEEN FROM Cyprus with our understandable focus on Turkey, the British presidency of the EU has been brutally interventionist, with London driving its own enlargement agenda through the concerns of an increasingly sceptical Europe, bullying its way to the result it wanted to achieve.
From elsewhere in Europe, however, the perspective is somewhat different. Certainly, Britain has used its presidency to ensure that Turkey would begin accession talks as planned. But beyond enlargement? Nothing, an inertia (some would say deliberate) that is beginning to worry many across the EU. One Austrian Euro MP last week put out an ironic “wanted” notice for the presidency. The regular autumn meeting of heads of state and government has been cancelled to be replaced by an informal one-day get-together at Hampton Court later this week, and even allies are beginning to ask questions about the lack of direction of the current presidency.
Put bluntly, Europe has been left on auto-pilot. Given the prevalent sense in Britain that the EU does too much, it would not be too far fetched to suppose the lack of leadership is entirely deliberate. But this not the time for auto-pilot: the EU is at a crossroads and must decide on its future. The Constitution has collapsed, and negotiations for the 2007-2013 budget are deadlocked – because of the British veto.
Both are questions of considerable importance, yet talking to British officials, one gets little sense of urgency. “The Constitution is on the back burner,” we’re told. Fair enough, but the presidency had been expected to launch a broad public debate on the issue. It has done nothing of the sort. As for the financial perspectives, we’re told “bilateral consultations are under way”, but with the Autumn Council cancelled, that pushes everything back to December and possibly even into next year’s Austrian presidency – a possibility that doesn’t appear unduly to concern British officials.
The European Union can bumble along without a Constitution, it can even bumble along without the financial 2007-2013 perspectives, resorting to annual budgets.
But the Constitution was not invented by Euro-freaks intent on creating a super state, it was drafted to address certain functional problems of the Union and to go some way to introduce greater accountability. Leaving things in limbo will only increase the sense of crisis in Europe and further alienate sceptical European public opinion. And while annual budgets may keep the union ticking, they will see an end to many of the long-term projects so important to redistributing the wealth and know-how of one of the most successful political projects of recent times.
If Britain’s intention is actually to run down the European Union, it is doing an excellent job. Yet Tony Blair insists he is not a Eurosceptic: it’s about time he proved it.
