[A-List] The Policy Network: UK's EU strategy

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Europe resents Britain's new success
By Peter Mandelson
Financial Times: November 11 2002

In recent months there has been, it seems, a mild backlash in the European
Union against Britain. It is due in a limited way to a failure of British
diplomacy. But the main reason for the modest froideur is not because what
Britain is doing is wrong but because it has been too successful - and is
causing jealousy.

It is impossible to wipe out 50 years of history, so no one should be
surprised by the enduring suspicion of Britain's fidelity and its apparent
role as backmarker on every step of European integration. It will take more
than Tony Blair's genuine enthusiasm for Europe to live down what has
preceded him. No prime minister has shown greater commitment to European
co-operation since Winston Churchill and, more recently, Edward Heath. His
desire to see the EU strengthen its efficiency and credibility is sincere.

Yet continental distrust of British exceptionalism in relation to Europe
lives on and it is cramping Britain's style and influence within the EU.
Talk of Britain's budget rebate feeds the sense of Britain as the member
state that wants to be in - but only on its own terms (a perception
President Jacques Chirac seems ready to encourage).

This distrust will be countered only when Britain enters the euro. At the
moment, other European governments remain confused about UK intentions in
spite of Mr Blair's affirmation about "destiny". This uncertainty is
breeding irritation, given the strength of Labour's political position.

So how is Britain's success in Europe compounding its problems? Quite simply
because, in economics, Europe is moving perhaps two steps towards but one
step away from a more Anglo-Saxon model. Visionary federalism has been
largely abandoned, putting the institutional debate in similar Anglo- Saxon
territory. Most Europeans accept the inevitability of these trends but that
does not stop resentment that in some places is quite intense.

Take some current examples. Since 1997, Mr Blair has been winning converts
to his argument (shared by the Spanish, Nordics and Dutch) that, to compete
globally, Europe needs greater economic dynamism and higher employment
through more flexible and open markets and welfare state reforms. Yet many
remain uneasy at what they see as a tilt towards neo-liberal economics. They
give little credit to Mr Blair for the way his domestic programme of public
service investment and reform is founded in social democratic values.

Another example is the Convention on the Future of Europe. A leading French
commissioner remarked to me the other week that "the convention's direction
is British". He meant this as a compliment but not an endorsement.

When it comes to reform of the EU stability and growth pact, it is to the
policy framework of Gordon Brown, UK chancellor of the exchequer, that many
are looking for ideas. Britain will be a willing and effective partner in
defence, as long as its view is accepted that Europe's capability is extra
to Nato not anti-Nato. You can see the picture that is emerging - and not
only in French minds.

It is in France, however, that there is the greatest fear of Europe's
Anglicisation. There is dislike of Mr Blair's ability to win the debate. Mr
Chirac, and Dominique de Villepin, his thoroughly able and hyperactive
foreign minister, seem determined to blunt Mr Blair's new British thrust.
They are doing this by reviving the age-old Franco-German partnership, by
blocking farm reform and by making it hard for the US and Britain to get
their way at the United Nations over Iraq.

The danger for Britain is that France's desire to check Mr Blair's adept
tactics starts to catch on among the majority of the EU's member states. The
British government is particularly vulnerable on two fronts.

On Iraq, there is widespread admiration and relief that Mr Blair has been
instrumental in persuading President George W. Bush to go the UN route. But
there is also a feeling, not just in France, that Britain is too oriented to
US aims and methods; that it disregards Europe's views, even marginalising
fellow European leaders. This feeds the paranoia about its closeness to the
US and the view that Britain is European only as an accident of geography.

On the convention, Britain's justifiable and widely shared case against
European centralism is starting to be portrayed as prejudice against the
European Commission. Britain is in danger of losing support among the
smaller members, for whom the Commission is a champion and protector.

Britain's European continental critics readily acknowledge that the EU needs
Britain at its core to punch its weight in the world. Germany needs Britain
in the euro and France needs it to make a success of European defence. But
the government, in its handling of its European role, needs to be conscious
of the need not to generate resentment and its unattractive cousin,
schadenfreude. In this light, it is not the strategy that needs changing,
only the footwork.

The writer is a Labour member of parliament and chairs Policy Network, a
European think-tank