Listening to London’s Heart radio on a Saturday morning, I got to know that for the first time ever the capital’s Oxford and Regent streets would be traffic free for the whole day. The reason for this car-free bonanza was of course shopping. Londoners who forwent the option of visiting such colossi as Bluewater and Brent Cross would be granted the possibility of traipsing around the main shopping streets free from the polluting nuisance of cars. Conservative estimates had it that by the evening of this busiest shopping day of the year (for London), a million and a half shoppers would have hit the stores − presumably to spend some of their well-earned British Pounds.
Nothing abnormal there is there? Whether it is Sliema, Valletta or London, every town will be doing its best to get the lion’s share of the Christmas spending market and London is no exception. Enthusiasm oozed out of the radio as the announcer coordinated listeners through traffic jams, transport hitches and special opening times towards the giant Mecca of consumption. Here was Britain’s answer to the US Black Friday. There was even a whiff of the Dickensian Christmas that could be detected through the advertorials… until the half-hourly news stepped in.
Are you being deceived?
Yep. For the news could not miss out on the greatest item of the day. Europe (the naughty, naughty EU) had decided to forge ahead without the UK. It was all over the place − from the indignation and anger of Sarkozy, the unaffected matter-of-factness of Frau Merkel, and the schoolboy half-hearted apologies of David Cameron: The Euro 17 + 9 others (that means all the EU minus the UK) will forge ahead with an intergovernmental pact. The Euro Debt Summit (you know how bad things are when the word “Debt” creeps into the summit title) had unsurprisingly resulted in egg on the face for whoever thought that states would pool sovereignty as easily as they pool debts.
The best off-record comment I read about the summit has been attributed to an anonymous French diplomat. He said: “The Brits turned up to the Euro Summit like a man who turns up to a wife-swapping party without a wife.” I’m assuming it was not Strauss-Kahn who said that but probably someone with very much the same mentality. What did happen of course is that many states were not that eager to have a rapid tinker with the Treaties as the Merkozy duo had suggested at the beginning of the week. What they have opted for is the sort of Intergovernmental Agreement that consolidates the belief that we are still at a stage where nations and their sovereignty come before any idea of union and solidarity, which is also what federations are about.
United we lend
Behind the minutiae of the agreement lie a few unaltered truths. States will hang on to their fiscal policies and will only allow a mechanism that punishes deficit defaulters if they are allowed to create the deficit in the first place. Essentially, while the Lisbon criteria regarding deficits were a sort of invitation to budgetary discipline, the new agreement turns that invitation into compulsory conformity − with consequences for those who fail.
Why is the UK out? The UK is out because it never was really that far in. It sat at the table for 10 hours demanding the impossible in exchange for its participation. Frankly, the UK is not the problem. The issue here is how much of this is a long-term solution and how much will turn out to be cosmetic playing to the markets. The opting for an intergovernmental approach is also a clear sign that Europe might have once again missed its chance of institutional integration within a federal framework. One of this week’s blog posts on J’accuse (http://www.akkuza.com/2011/12/06/aaa/) looks at a speech delivered by Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski.
Calling spades
Sikorski’s speech has the added advantage of having that no-nonsense approach. Here are his words of advice to the UK:
You have given the Union its common language. The Single Market was largely your brilliant idea. A British commissioner runs our diplomacy. You could lead Europe on defence. You are an indispensable link across the Atlantic. On the other hand, the eurozone’s collapse would hugely harm your economy. Also, your total sovereign, corporate and household debt exceeds 400 per cent of GDP. Are you sure markets will always favour you? We would prefer you in, but if you can’t join, please allow us to forge ahead. And please start explaining to your people that European decisions are not Brussels’ diktats but results of agreements in which you freely participate.
If you can’t join us please allow us to forge ahead. That was Sikorski’s “plea” to the UK on 28th November. By 9th December, Europe was doing just that − forging ahead.
The UK was left wondering whether this opt-out was really such a good deal after all. Either that or, instead of wondering, it was busy shopping in Oxford and Regent streets because the recession might turn out to be one big Brussels lie after all … might it not?
5 replies on “J’accuse : Cool Britannia?”
As someone succinctly put it, the UK is as isolated as someone who refused to board the ship, standing on the quay waiving the Titanic goodbye.Yet Dr Gonzi tells us of his contribution to eliminate fiscal harmonization from the final deal (a natural pre-requisite for a functioning currency) when at the same time claiming it was a good summit because it addressed all the important issues…surely it can not become more pathetic than this?…
Whoever put it so succinctly forgot to mention that the UK opted to stand alone at the “quay” and wave the so-called “Titanic” away even though it was perfectly evident to the UK itself that a tsunami had been announced.
The UK did not stay out of the debt-deal because it thought it was a bad idea, the UK stayed out of the debt-deal because it thought it could not get the deal to protect the City and because it could not get an advantageous agreement similar to those pushed through by Lady Thatcher.
In the long run the UK is in the same shit as everyone else…. if it prefers to wave at what you call a “Titanic” from the comfort of its own sinking ship then tant pis. In any case, their absence from the attempt at pooling together one last valiant time will hardly be noticed.
Looks like not everybody’s waving enthusiastically on the quay:
http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2011/12/12/l-attitude-de-david-cameron-sur-l-europe-seme-le-trouble_1617233_3214.html#xtor=EPR-32280229-%5BNL_Titresdujour%5D-20111212-%5Btitres%5D
Am I being excessively naive here in thinking the following?
The new EURO member deal – none of the UK’s business in the first place, and never will be under a Tory government, let’s face it;
As for the Fiscal compact:
– a constitutional amendment to limit the UK’s power in directing it’s own fiscal policy (I think a Labour government in the UK would have struggled with that, let alone a Conservative one);
– ex ante reporting of national debt issuance plans? (idem)
EDP (again none of UK’s business);
budgetary surveillance of the UK? and deepening fiscal integration of Europe? (nothing short of an overwhelming Brownian/Blairite majority would have accepted that … and ultimately, I doubt this would be acceptable to the Milibandian labour party, which is keen not to make the ‘mistakes’ (such as they are perceived) of Blair and Brown in getting too close to the Eurozone)
sure, it was not the right time for the UK to throw its “toys out of the pram” … in this economic climate, let’s be honest, there is no right time … but neither is it right to say that Cameron single-handedly has moved the UK to the insignificant outskirts of Europe … there was little in the summit that was palatable to the UK (unless you are looking for a complete U-turn in british political and economic strategy going forward, in the space of a couple of days), and the UK is realistically the only country in Europe with the stones to stand up to the Merkozy bandwagon … a bandwagon that is using economic disaster to bring about a political paradigm shift
Are we really surprised that things have turned out the way they have? Did Cameron really have a choice? And following all of the “we need our British friends to join us” drivel heard, aren’t Sarkozy and Merkel grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of Britain’s “bogey-man” status?
Maybe he could have played it differently, maybe he should have stayed in the room and seen what the final result would have been before the proverbial “Sahha u l-hara” moment … but there also needs to be another side to this mostly Euro coin – in one fell swoop Merkozy have attempted to steam straight past months (oftentimes years) of political and democractic vetting of EU treaty change – did they need to go that far? Time will tell … but I ain’t completely sold on the Merkozy political “big bazooka” so I’ll reserve my judgment on whether Cameron was right or wrong in his toy-throwing antics
Hello Jacque. The Euro was launched in 1999 as a political tool with some afterthought to its role in gelling together an amorphous collection of economies.
From the outset the British said that the Euro fundamentals are irretrievably flawed. By 2011 the British were proved right. (is it so hard to accept this fact just because our perception of the UK is that of men in white pinafors selling fish and chips?)
A summit gathered following much pre-lobbying to get new fundamental rules in place. But the summit came out with a long-john-silver result as all the heads of the Babylon collection (included our Mr Prime Minister) kept a straight face and talked of a successful summit that is manifestly unsuccessful.
The Moody’s Fitch’s etc of this world have alredy expressed themselves accordingly. The Tsunami you see has been predicted since anno mai. Yet most look at the internal dynamics of an economy and fail to realize that the external part is even more important. The investments that the United Kingdom has in all major economies of the world (that evolved since the industrial revolution) is a crucial component. And as far as I know United Kingdom’s rating is not under immediate threat as is the case with Germany and France.
And yet the old story repeats itself. Now Old Europe have gone the same way as their predecessors and are happy to have reached a point where they think they have kicked out the United Kingdom from the Europe equation.
Time have given its verdict on the 1999 Euro ‘fiasco’. I will not wait for another ten to see theoutcome of this latest long-john-silver ‘solution’.
Indeed the western world in toto ie old and new Europe plus America are in the process of decline. Yet the drive led by Old Europe for a closer union is partly driven by a need for political stability and economic prosperity. Britain does not need to have its democracy guaranteed by an outside arrangement. Its consideration is solely economic.
The prospect of a less bureaucratic and centralized EU has melted away even as euro fanatics within Old Europe openly question the powers of the Commission. Yet instead of rethinking the balance of competences, we now have a pseudo Franco/German engine that will splutter along the line as their subtle disagreements will gradually blob to the surface.
Then back to the old story…yet this time thanks to the mlpn and whatever you call it, we will find ourselves on the loser’s side. At least Europe can not take away our sun and sea.