Following the unexpected result of the UK’s Brexit referendum in 2016, the European Commission tasked three men with the task of ensuring that the decision to leave the European Union was remembered as absolute madness. Today the same three men remain at the top of the European political pantheon, but now they have adopted the ideas of the Brexiteers. To understand why is to understand the deepening crisis of the EU.
Michel Barnier, former EU commissioner, was chosen to lead the day-to-day negotiations with the UK; his mandate was to wear down the British envoys and besiege them with demands at every turn. Donald Tusk, then president of the European Council, even launched an unsuccessful campaign for a second referendum, suggesting, with very little diplomacy, that Brexiteers deserved a “special place in hell.” Finally, Emmanuel Macron, having won the presidency of France, led from the heights of the Elysée the discursive battle against the spirit of Brexit, and warned his British counterparts that they would not be allowed to choose the parts of the EU they liked and renounce the rest.
The three men went to war against the Brexiteers with three goals in mind. First, defend the uniformity of the European single market; in particular the idea of maintaining a level playing field in which a French, a Portuguese and a Slovenian company would have (at least in theory) the same rules before them. Instead, Brexiteers (left or right) insisted that the UK government must regain the right to subsidize strategically important companies investing on British soil. Macron made this battle his own, denouncing the UK’s attempt to tilt the field in favor of some British companies at the expense of the sacred principles of the European single market.
The second objective was to crush any British hope that the City of London could free-ride on Community institutions. Tusk put together a team tasked with ensuring that the final Brexit deal punished British financiers who did not want to move a substantial part of their portfolios, payrolls and investments to EU territory, telling them bluntly that, for them, “the “Life will be different” after Brexit.
The ultimate goal was to portray Brexiteers as misguided enemies of another sacred EU principle: freedom of movement. Barnier repeatedly told British negotiators that to preserve non-tariff trade with the EU, the UK had to give up the absurd demand to regain control of its borders. And not long ago (in June) he repeated it categorically: “There will be no renegotiation of Brexit without freedom of movement.”
Today the three guardians of Europe have changed their tune and adopted the language and policies of the Brexit wolves they had to confront. The first thing to fall was the fiction of defending a level playing field for companies throughout Europe. In the face of the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, France and Germany reaffirmed the right to state subsidy. This is how Macron expressed it: “The response we have had in Europe in recent years has been to provide national flexibility [en la forma de] state aid. Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz mobilized his government to prevent the (completely legal) purchase of Commerzbank by the Italian UniCredit, thus attacking the possibility of a single financial market in the EU.
The Damascene conversion of the other two men is even more surprising. Tusk has discovered his inner Brexiteer, and apparently has forgotten how wrong it is for an EU member to want to reassert control of its borders. Now, as Poland’s Prime Minister, he promises (correctly!) to “take back control” of Poland’s borders, and demands a “British” exemption from EU rules regarding the minimum number of asylum seekers allowed. European countries must accept. In fact, it went further, and suspended the right to asylum in Poland for people coming from Belarus and Russia, in flagrant violation not only of EU rules but also of Poland’s obligations under international law and the European Court of Rights. Humans (the usual target of Brexit invective).
Not to be outdone, Barnier (now Prime Minister of France) leads a minority government that depends on the tacit support of the eurosceptic and xenophobic Marine Le Pen and her National Rally. He has campaigned for France to be exempt from the jurisdiction of European courts and to be able to deport anyone it wants and even prohibit the entry of non-EU immigrants by law.
What happened? When did EU shepherds turn into wolves? The answer has a lot to do with the fragility of Europe’s economic foundations. Renationalizing policymaking was always a possibility, ever since the “ever closer union” began to lose its luster. Nearly two decades of underinvestment have intensified the centrifugal forces pulling Europe apart, and the spirit of Brexit spreads from Paris to Warsaw.
Since the pandemic, European exports to China are flat, while US imports from Europe have almost doubled. Total dependence on the United States in terms of weapons, fossil fuels and external demand leaves the EU in an extremely vulnerable position. If Donald Trump wins the next presidential election and fulfills his promise to tariff EU exports, Europe’s stagnation and fragmentation will deepen.
European leaders now bear the tragic blame that by rejecting (moderate but fundamental) political reform of the EU for so long, they have guaranteed its disintegration. Defending only in words the common needs of Europe (for example, a large-scale green investment programme), without any interest in creating the necessary shared means, they have become the most destructive spoilers of the EU. Now they are the Brexiteers.
Yanis Varoufakisa former finance minister of Greece, is leader of the MERA25 party and Professor of Economics at the University of Athens. Traducción: Esteban Flamini.
