The latest on Brexit and German coalition formation

As Brexit negotiations continue in Brussels and coalition negotiations continue in Berlin, Tyson Barker and I discuss what's next for both of these contentious talks in this month's Brussels2Berlin podcast.

The speeches podcast: May in Florence, Trump at UNGA

It's a week of speeches - Theresa May asking for extra Brexit time in Florence, Donald Trump ushering in the dog-eat-dog era at the UN, and Emmanuel Macron spelling out his vision of EU reform.

Pseudo-independence

Facing increasing panic over a looming exit deadline in March 2019, Theresa May has called for a ‘transition period’ in which the UK loses its EU voting power but still has to follow its rules. It could easily turn permanent.

Desperate to salvage Brexit talks which have gone off the rails, British Prime Minister Theresa May gave a much-anticipated speech in Florence today. She surely hopes it will stem the panic over the country’s lack of preparedness for the ‘cliffs edge’. That is March 29, 2019, when the country must leave the EU.

There is now little prospect that an agreement on Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU can be agreed by that date. And so the prime minister had little choice but to do something to calm the jitters of British businesses and markets. 

My prediction: Britain will join the EEA

Like in Norway and Switzerland, British elites will have to accept an arrangement they know is bad in order to indulge the illusions of a slight majority of voters. 

The political class was stunned. After a nationwide in/out referendum on EU membership, expected to yield an 'in' result because the entirety of the political and business establishment supported it, people awoke to the news that people had voted out, by 52%. A yearning for national sovereignty had won the day.

This wasn't 24 June 2016. It was 29 November 1994, the day after Norway's referendum on whether to join the European Union. 52% voted for Norway to be outside the EU, while 47% voted to be in it - an almost exact mirror of the UK result 22 years later. The result was a political shock that sent reverberations through the government and business establishment. 

What happened in Norway in the ensuing years was a lesson in how politicians must sometimes pull their citizens along begrudgingly, or even unwittingly. Because even though EU membership had been rejected, Norway effectively ended up becoming an EU pseudo-member - under terms much worse than if it had become a member state. The same fate awaited Iceland and Switzerland. 

On the way in, and on the way out?

On this week's Brussels2Berlin podcast, we talk Turkey, and Brexit. It was a bad week for EU relations with both.

 

So where does this leave Brexit?

Theresa May scored an own goal with her disastrous decision to call a snap UK election, but her humiliating defeat was not a plea from the public to stay in the EU. 

When Theresa May called a snap election in April, it was a nakedly opportunistic move. 

The opposition Labour Party was in disarray, 20 points behind the Conservatives in the polls. Their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, did not command the loyalty of his MPs and had only held on to his position because of grassroots support. 

The UK Independence Party essentially had no raison d'etre any more. The one-issue party had gotten their wish - Britain was leaving the EU. The Scottish National Party looked to be in trouble in Scotland as well. May saw an opportunity to hoover up Labour, UKIP and SNP votes and give her perhaps the largest majority in UK history - making the country effectively a one-party state. It would be a big improvement from her existing situation, having inherited a razor-thin majority government from David Cameron.

Europeans have been lied to their whole lives. They have three months to learn the truth.

European politicians have never explained to their citizens how dependent they are on America. As the Trump emergency unfolds, many still do not understand the danger they are in.

At the tail end of 2016, as Europeans adjusted to the reality that Donald Trump had won the presidential election, I found myself having two very different conversations in Europe.

One was with my Brussels and Berlin friends from what some might derisively term the 'educated elite'. They were scared, talking about what the result meant for Europe and how things on the 'old continent' were about to change.

Then there was the conversation I found myself having with people I just met, or acquaintances - people who don't follow politics or world events very closely. "What do you think about Trump?" they snickered, as if he was entirely my problem and not theirs. They expected a reaction of, "I'm so embarrassed for my country" or "things are going to be bad in my homeland". I've told them the entire global order is about to be thrown into chaos, starting first here in Europe. They stared back at me in confusion. Surely, Trump is America's problem, not Europe's.

Obama passes the torch to Merkel

For the past 70 years the US President has been known as the 'leader of the free world'. Tomorrow Barack Obama arrives in Berlin to hand that title to the German chancellor.

Barack Obama's European farewell tour, which is kicking off in Athens today, was meant to be a triumphant farewell to a continent where he remains enormously popular.

Instead, the trip has become a crisis tour. The US president must urgently reassure the European public that the continent is not about to be plunged into war by a Donald Trump presidency, and that American moral leadership remains intact. In his private meetings, however, he will have to acknowledge that he cannot assure any such thing. He will have to urgently plan with European leaders for how to peacefully transition to a post-Trump world.

The most important of these meetings will come tomorrow in Berlin, when he meets with the reluctant new leader of Western liberal democracy - Angela Merkel.

Soft Brexit or Hard Brexit? It's a false choice

Today's vote in Wallonia against an EU-Canada free trade deal makes it painfully clear - Europeans will not approve any arrangement that lets Britain have its cake and eat it too.

Over the past weeks, people in the UK have been engaged in a tortured debate - should we have a "hard Brexit" or a "soft Brexit"?

A hard Brexit, viewed by most people (even the Brexiteers) as the worst outcome, would mean that the UK cuts economic ties with Europe, and continues to trade with the EU only on WTO terms. In other words, the UK is left with the same relationship with the EU enjoyed by Morocco.

A 'soft Brexit' would mean the UK retains market access while formally leaving the EU. This would occur either by the UK joining the EEA (à la Norway and Iceland) or negotiating bilateral treaties (à la Switzerland). Either of the latter two options would involve compromise. Crucially, the EU has made clear that the UK can't have either of these "soft Brexit" scenarios without maintaining freedom of movement (the ability for EU citizens to live and work in any EU country).

"I hate Britain, but I love Brits"

British people are going to have to get used to their new most-hated-nation status. As an American in Europe, I can give some tips on how to endure it.

"I hate America, but I love Americans". It's a line I've heard so many times in the past decade of living in Europe that I barely notice it any more.

I got it particularly often when I first moved to Europe in 2006. It was just three years since the launch of the Iraq War, which the vast majority of Europeans opposed. George W. Bush, immensely unpopular in Europe, was still the president. I had to face down a lot of hostility toward the country I came from.

But usually, after an energetic rant against the crimes of America, the person speaking to me would finish by saying something like, "but I love Americans. They're so creative, so full of energy. I love their TV and movies. I just don't understand how these same people can vote for leaders like this."

The Brexit diaspora

After Brexit, many British expats are considering never returning to a home that now feels alien to them.

I'm in Brussels this week, and have spent much of it catching up. I was away all summer, and though I was here briefly for work in early September, this is the first time I've been able to see a lot of my friends since that fateful day on 22 June.

Belgium may be experiencing a sunny Indian summer at the moment, but somehow the city still feels dark. There is a palpable fear about where the world is going. Post-Brexit, and possibly pre-Trump, we find ourselves in a moment of extraordinary unease. In my entire life, I've never felt such an overwhelming air of pessimism and fear all around me. It seems as if everyone has lost hope.

Nobody seems to be feeling this more acutely right now than Brits in Brussels. They've dedicated much of their lives to the idea that they were part of a grand project - citizens of a unifying Europe. Suddenly, half of their countrymen have pulled the rug out from under them, upending their entire lives. You are no longer a European citizen, they have been told. Come home at once.

Thousands marched, but what are the options for keeping UK in EU?

It is a time of huge uncertainty for Britain, but there are four scenarios which could see the country remain in the EU.

Yesterday saw an unprecedented, and uncharacteristic, outpouring of love for the European Union on the streets of London.
Tens of thousands of people marched on the British Parliament in a protest hastily organised on Facebook called 'March for Europe'. It was a show of European love not ordinarily seen in the British capital, where EU flags are normally verboten. And it wasn't a vague outpouring of sentiment either. The protesters had a specific demand for the parliament - do not pull the trigger on Brexit. That trigger is known as article 50 (more on that later).

The crowd was overwhelmingly young and educated. As The Guardian's Ed Vulliamy noted, "the hollow, bitter wit of the banners and placards was a fair indication of who took to the streets". “Un-Fuck My Future”, the placards pleaded. “No Brex Please, We’re British”. "Fromage, not Farage". Pictures of Whitney Houston singing “I Will Always Love EU” and Rick Astley singing "Never gonna give EU up, never gonna let EU down". 

“Hell no, we won’t go!” they chanted.

Why England in the EEA would be a victory for France

France has always resented British influence in the EU. Excluding the UK from EU law-making could reshape the union in the French model.

In 1963, when the United Kingdom first applied to join the European Community, the answer from Paris was a resolute 'non'. 

French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed the application in '63 and again in '67. He said that "a number of aspects of Britain's economy, from working practices to agriculture...made Britain incompatible with Europe". He added that the UK had a “deep-seated hostility” to any pan-European project.

It wasn't until De Gaulle relinquished the French presidency that Paris finally relented and allowed the UK to join the club in 1972.

So what were the "aspects of Britain's economy" that De Gaulle was so worried about? It was free market liberal economics. De Gaulle, and his successors, distrusted the "Anglo-Saxon" (The French term for Anglo-American) model of capitalism and had a very different vision for Europe.