Much has been written about the timing of and the reasons behind this announcement, which helped reassure voters who may have been tempted by Nigel Farage’s UKIP, thus putting David Cameron on track for a second term in office, which he would go on to win in 2015.
In any case, with David Cameron re-elected as Prime Minister, the European Commission wasted no time in setting up its first task force, under the supervision of British Director-General Jonathan Faull, to deal with ‘strategic issues related to the UK referendum’.
On 19 February 2016, discussions with the UK brought to fruition Cameron’s ‘new settlement’, addressing the concerns he had expressed three years earlier, in particular by acknowledging that the UK would not be bound by the objective of an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’.
On the subject of the free movement of persons, the UK gained the right to limit access to social benefits for newly arrived workers from other member states for up to four years. It also gained the option to index child benefit for parents working in the UK, but whose children have remained in their country of origin, to the standard of living in their country of origin.
We all know what came next. These measures, aside from being questionable from the point of view of social justice, would not prevent the British from deciding, after all, to leave the European Union.
Notes
1 * https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/eu-speech-at-bloomberg.
2016
Friday, 24 June 2016: A rude awakening
This early summer morning began with a rude awakening for all Europeans. We went to our beds last night certain that the British had voted to remain in the European Union. All initial commentaries suggested this was the case. Even Nigel Farage, one of the most ardent Leave campaigners, seemed to have conceded defeat.
Now, this morning, everyone is stunned. The precise counting of votes is finished. Fifty-two per cent of the British public who voted have chosen to leave the EU!
It’s an earthquake. For the first time, an EU country has decided to leave.
By chance, I have an appointment this morning with François Hollande at the Élysée Palace. He is as shocked as I am. A profound geopolitical change is imminent in Europe. For the French President as for the German Chancellor – for all of us – this is a wake-up call, a collective failure from which we must try to draw some lessons.
Sunday, 26 June 2016: Three British divides
Now that the shock has subsided, the analysis begins.
In reality, Thursday’s vote reveals a threefold divide within British society.
First of all, a geographical divide. England and Wales may have voted to leave the EU, but the Remain camp accounted for 62 per cent of voters in Greater London and Scotland, and 56 per cent in Northern Ireland. Poring over this map of a ‘Disunited Kingdom’, I also note with interest the position of the great industrial working-class cities affected by the decline of industry, whose Leave vote can in part be understood as a rejection of the Prime Minister’s austerity policy.
Second, a very clear social divide between graduates and well-off workers, who voted to remain in the Union, and the working poor and the unemployed, many of whom voted Leave as a symbol of their rejection of a Europe they associate with globalization, and in particular with the arrival of workers from Eastern Europe, who they accuse of stealing jobs and driving down wages.
Finally, there is also a generational divide behind this result, a divide between young people, who see their future as being within the EU – more than 70 per cent of 18–24-year-olds voted to remain – and older people, the majority of whom voted to leave. In this generational battle, the older cohort had a significant weapon at its disposal: participation. In all, 83 per cent of over-65s cast their vote, compared with only one in three young people.
Thursday, 7 July 2016: On the plane with Jean-Claude Juncker
Jean-Claude Juncker lands in Warsaw this afternoon to participate in the NATO summit and to sign a cooperation protocol between the EU and the North Atlantic Alliance alongside Donald Tusk, President of the European Council.
For the past ten months, at the Commission President’s request, I have been his special adviser on defence and security policy. These are issues that have always been of interest to me; indeed, in 2002 I chaired the European Convention’s Working Group on Defence. My group’s suggestions at the time for strengthening defence cooperation within the EU have now been incorporated into the Treaty. It’s all in there: a stronger role for the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, a European Defence Agency, the solidarity clause and the possibility for a group of countries to set out as ‘pathfinders’ by way of ‘structured cooperation’.
Aside from my interest in the subject, Jean-Claude Juncker’s proposal that I should work alongside him was rather touching since, only two years earlier at the EPP [European People’s Party] congress, we had competed as nominees to become the centre-right European election candidate and, ultimately, to stand for President of the European Commission. He won, with the decisive support of the CDU/CSU [German Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union parliamentary party]. I lost, but honourably so, having received a respectable 40 per cent of the votes cast.
So here I am on this sunny afternoon, on the plane to Warsaw with the President of the Commission. He has kindly invited me to join him tomorrow for a private meeting with President Obama and several members of his cabinet.
Suddenly, President Juncker turns to me, gestures to his young diplomatic adviser Richard Szostak not to listen, and says: ‘Michel, I have a sensitive matter to discuss with you. Would you consider returning to the Commission in a permanent position, to lead negotiations with the United Kingdom following its decision to leave the European Union?’ Naturally, I am taken aback by the question. To tell the truth, the day after the British Brexit vote, my mind had been more on how I could make myself useful in my own country, during what looked likely to be both a historic and a perilous period.
For fifteen years now, at various times and in various different capacities, I have had to deal with the major issues that will lie at the heart of the Brexit negotiations: first as Commissioner for Regional Policy and Constitutional Affairs from 1999 to 2004, then a little later in 2008 as President of the European Agricultural and Fisheries Council – but above all from 2010 to 2014 as European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services.
My answer to Jean-Claude Juncker is therefore unhesitating and positive. ‘I have to check how the idea will go down in certain quarters’, he adds with a smile. ‘Don’t mention anything, we’ll talk again soon…’
That evening, we have a beer together in the hotel restaurant while watching the European Cup semi-final between France and Germany. France wins 2–0. What a day!
