European leaders celebrating in Rome are well aware of these problems. Their responses to similar troubles in the past have fallen into two categories, neither of which seems adequate this time. One is to follow Monnet’s advice and take a further bold leap towards ever closer union. Since the Brexit decision there has been much talk of a new Franco-German initiative to relaunch the project. True believers like Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian prime minister who is now leader of the Liberal group in the European Parliament and has just written a book, “Europe’s Last Chance”, argue that, since the union’s troubles are created mainly at national level, more Europe and a leap towards ever closer union must be the answer.
Yet the evidence is that people in most member countries simply do not agree. Brexit was a warning of what can happen when the EU loses touch with voters.
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Think again
Yet with small exceptions, these ideas have not borne fruit. Enhanced co-operation has been used but thrice, for cross-border divorce, the European patent and property rights. Such a paucity of results partly reflects fears that a multi-speed, multi-tier Europe could begin to undo the EU. This also explains the adverse reactions to an August 2016 paper by a group of experts published by a Brussels think-tank, Bruegel, entitled “Europe after Brexit: A Proposal for a Continental Partnership”. Such a partnership could, the paper said, offer non-EU countries partial membership of the single market without full free movement of labour, and also create a system of decision-making that gave them an informal say (but no formal vote) in rule-making. The paper suggested that Britain, and perhaps others, might be interested. But both Brussels and national capitals dismissed the proposal because it would let Britain have its cake (barrier-free access to the single market) and eat it (limits on free movement).
The idea surely deserves another look. A union of 28, or even 27, members is very different from the original club of six. There are countless examples of opt-outs from common policies, ranging from large ones (staying out of the euro, common security and defence policy or Schengen) to minor ones (controls on purchases by foreigners of houses in Denmark and Austria, or Sweden’s derogation from the rules for chewing tobacco and selling alcohol). In this sense, a multi-speed, multi-tier union exists already. This special report will explore its wider promise, starting with the most obvious example: the single currency.
