Some supporters of the EU might struggle with the concept, but Europe is about much more than just what unfolds in Brussels. The EU’s 27 states may be a large part of Europe, but the two are not coterminous. Nor, more importantly, do they all have the same interests.
The newly created European Political Community (EPC) had its first meeting in Prague over the last couple of days. Including those states on the fringes of Europe, as the EPC does, the number in attendance was 44 (with Belarus and Russia excluded). Beyond the EU 27 there is Turkey, the UK, Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, six Western Balkans nations, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The Truss government and any other should ensure that it is not sucked into the EU’s orbit willy nilly via this new organisation
The EPC or, to avoid confusion with the EU, the ‘European nations club’, is the brainchild of Emmanuel Macron – although his motives remain unclear. All French political parties opposed to continued expansion of EU membership. As a result, some have seen in the initiative a French diplomatic manoeuvre to halt the EU’s expansion eastwards into the western Balkans and across to Ukraine and Moldova, as championed, in particular, by Germany. France’s idea is for the new club to act as a holding pattern for EU membership candidate states without disappointing them and thereby forcing them into the orbit of other larger neighbouring powers, such as Russia or Turkey.
The EPC overlaps with myriad European-dominated international organisations such as the G7, Nato and the Council of Europe. Despite this, Macron described the initiative back in May as creating ‘a new space’ for cooperation on issues such as security, energy and transport. There is no doubt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has underlined that need. There was much attempted fence-mending between particular states in Prague in meetings between Erdogan and his Greek counterpart, and the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo.
But the French idea of a Europe-wide forum has a long history that resurfaces sea serpent-like now and then. Francois Mitterrand vainly attempted to harness it just after the fall of the Berlin Wall via a ‘European confederation’ to absorb eastern and central European states and tie down a future united Germany. In the 1950s French foreign minister Robert Schuman, one of the architects of the early European institutions such as Coal and Steel, attempted to create a ‘European Political Community’ to confederate the various European bodies. Even before that, General de Gaulle dreamed of a Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals, master of its own destiny without the dominance of outside powers (for which read the United States).
In his Strasbourg speech in May 2020 setting out his long term vision for the EU, Macron conceived of a two-speed Europe. At its core would be a hard EU of member-states committed to deeper integration and qualified majority voting, with an outer ring of the less committed. And here he referenced Britain’s participation. Some French (and European) officials see in this new forum an instrument to lasso London and keep her tied to the EU in the hope of a return to the fold under a future administration.
The renewed war in Europe has demonstrated Britain’s stalwart material and political support for Ukraine. In the wake of this, more subtle diplomats and policymakers would settle for Britain playing a stronger foreign policy, defence and security role in Europe alongside individual European nations, notably France.
The problem the UK has with the EPC is threefold. First the Truss government and any other should ensure that it is not sucked into the EU’s orbit willy nilly via this new organisation. Second, one would hope that London understands that Britain’s strongest card in negotiations with Brussels on outstanding difficulties, such as the Northern Ireland Protocol, is precisely its trump card of defence and security cooperation, which has increased in value since the Ukraine war. London rightly kept this out of the Brexit negotiations and the final settlement to use as future leverage post-Brexit. Consequently, and this is the third potential problem, the UK should not be seduced too easily into committing to the EPC’s security dimension – thereby playing its trump card – without first securing substantial guaranteed returns in kind.
The UK remains a European state with shared interests with its continental neighbours alongside whom it should, and will, continue to work. But it should beware of squandering key assets it holds without tangible returns.
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