When the then Conservative Party Prime Minister Harold Macmillan decided, in the early 1960s, that it was in Britain‘s interest to be a member of the European Economic Community (EEC) established in 1958, there was much ambivalence expressed in the country which reflected the earlier British decision in the 1950s not to join negotiations then ongoing on the continent to establish the EEC. At that time, Britain felt that an alternative free trade area, subsequently constructed as the European Free Trade Area (EFTA), could serve the country’s trading interests on the continent.
In 1963 General de Gaulle, then President of France, used that ambivalence to veto Macmillan’s application on behalf of Britain. This was an indication of the President’s apparent feeling that Britain could wield too great an influence in the Community’s affairs, possibly creating an alliance with a reviving Germany, to France’s potential disadvantage and discomfort.
Subsequent perseverance, in the face of both some continuing French hostility and reservations among the major political parties in Britain (Conservative and Labour), eventually prevailed, leading to the country’s entry and influential participation in the Community, now the European Union in 1973. Nonetheless, as the leading countries of the EU, France and Germany, sought to progressively tighten the integration system, the UK balked at joining subsequent proposed common arrangements for facilitating freedom of movement, and then at being part of a process of financial integration that led to the establishment of the common currency, the euro. From the perspective of France and Germany, the fact that, in respect of the common currency for example, other countries like Denmark and Sweden, did not wish to participate, did not excuse the British reluctance.
The difficulties of the Eurozone not only concerning economic growth failures in specific countries like Spain and Greece, but also in the wider sphere of banking, would now seem to have given grist to the mill of those in Britain who still hesitate to see their country as inevitably fully integrated into the EU arrangements. But on the other hand, what now seems in place is a firm decision on the part of most countries, including Germany and France, after prolonged discussion and in the face of deepening economic crisis, and abetted by the technocrats of the European Commission and the European Central Bank, to hasten the integration process by ensuring more centralized EU coordination of the financial arrangements of specific countries.
This would involve, from their perspectives, creating new arrangements for the harmonization of fiscal policy, resulting in a fiscal union. And complementary to such a union, would naturally follow new arrangements for economic policy harmonization and governance, now referred to in the EU as political union.
In response, the British opponents, for varying reasons, of European integration in both the Conservative and Labour ranks in Britain, have now vigorously indicated their opposition to these new steps, which they interpret as a major challenge to national sovereignty, and they have raised the prospect of departure from the EU. Their excuse, on this occasion, has been the size of the EU budget, which they have been pressuring David Cameron’s government to have reduced. Their threat has been a veto of the Budget by Britain; and Cameron, in response, has felt it necessary to bend to their demands, splitting his party as a result.
The anti-Europeans in the Conservative Party have been aided and abetted by an alliance with the British Labour Party, which to most observers has been seen as opportunistic – simply yet another weapon to wield against a government reeling from opposition to its austerity measures designed to shore up the country’s economy. In turn, Cameron’s efforts at finding a formula to hold his troops together did not prevent over 50 MPs from joining the Labour Party on the vote.
But yet another embarrassment for David Cameron has been the strong opposition of the government’s coalition partners, the Liberals, to attempts to succumb to pressure to annul the present arrangement for the EU budget. The Liberal leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, himself once a high-level employee of the European Commission, has found himself between a rock and a hard place, the austerity measures having diminished the party’s popular support.
The consequence is likely to be a revived discussion about the place of Britain in the EU’s arrangements, with the Labour Party attempting to minimize its role in the current contention, and letting the chips fall where they may for the time being. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has himself disappointed some of his party’s supporters by seeming to ally the party to the more right-wing and anti-European members of the Conservative Party. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair had assumed a posture of firm support for the integration effort that had seemed to bring left-wing members of parliament into a posture of acceptance of the EU, one of his main advisers, being Lord Mandelson, familiar to the Caribbean as having taken a position as Commissioner for Trade during the last Labour administration.
The apparent lukewarm attitude of Britain towards increasing economic integration on the continent, including an economically depressed Ireland which has recently been a substantial beneficiary of EU financial assistance, does not augur well for exerting its influence in respect of ACP interests that Caricom countries would like to advocate.
The current disorder in Britain vis-à-vis the EU, at the highest levels of the political system, must suggest to us an enhanced attempt to consolidate, and establish, relations with existing and potential allies on the continent. This is particularly so as the EU is in a phase of reorienting its attitudes and policies on development aid towards countries like the BRICS, and towards specific countries on the African continent whose economies have been showing vibrancy and drawing the interest of China. Except perhaps for countries like Guyana and Suriname, with possibilities for commodity exploitation, we are not particular priorities.
The Europeans are likely to be increasingly disinterested in our hesitations over decisive implementation of the Cariforum-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), particularly as one of our main partners in that EPA, the Dominican Republic has been taking an aggressive stance in respect of consolidating relations with the EU in that context. Caricom needs, in the new environment, to establish new diplomatic priorities vis-à-vis Europe.
Britain’s hesitations about European integration, which, since Macmillan’s démarche towards the then EEC, have consistently had to be withdrawn, cannot be a basis for our relations with a Europe in a rapidly changing continent. And Britain’s ambivalences should not restrain us.