‘I am deeply concerned. I am usually quite the optimist but this is probably the first time that I have ever been pessimistic about the future of the European Union. Brexit will feed populism across Europe. And we can hardly expect to bounce back with the heads of State and government that we have today in Europe.’
Françoise Grossetête is a veteran at the European Parliament. The French 69-year-old MEP first took office in Brussels in 1994. For the last two years, she has been the deputy leader of the EPP group, the europhile conservative group in the European Parliament.
Grossetete is not her usual chirpy self, as she gives an account of what it is like being a Member of the European Parliament in the new post-EU referendum era. Mixed emotions were palpable in the chamber on the Tuesday following the referendum, where an extraordinary plenary session was held to debate and vote a resolution to express the Parliament’s position after the leave vote.
Nigel Farage, by his provocative speech, became the willing punching-ball of a largely depressed europhile gathering. Reacting after the debate, socialist MEP Pervenche Beres from France did not mince words: ‘He was outrageous. He has no place in the European Parliament anymore. I am lost for words to express my disgust. He lied to the British people, he betrayed them and took them down this dead-end road.’
There is not much sympathy for other British political leaders either. MEP Philippe Lamberts, the co-leader of the Greens in Brussels commented: ‘Cameron has never been a europhile, neither has Corbyn. Cameron spent the first five years as Prime Minister criticising the EU. Remember when he said ‘I do not love Brussels, I love Britain.’ How could he have any credibility after saying that?’
However aggravated most MEPs feel since the vote, they know the blame game is now of little use and that there is no turning back. To avoid a snowball effect in Europe, they want the UK out and out as soon as possible. Central to the debate is the issue of article 50 of the EU Treaty. The resolution put to the vote of the MEPs on 28 June originally included an ask for ‘immediate activation’ of article 50. An amendment softening the wording to activation ‘as soon as possible’ was finally adopted.
Yet the clear message from the European Parliament remains the same. MEPs from across the benches have rallied around Juncker’s position: ‘no notification, no negotiation’. And too bad if in Westminster some dose of negotiation before notification is the preferred option. Brussels feels that it has given in too often over the last four decades to a very demanding UK.
On paper there is not much the Parliament can do. The only power given to MEPs, by virtue of article 50, is to give consent to the final agreement negotiated between the UK and the European Commission. MEPs will not agree to take a back seat and they have a strong case for being involved. They are very much aware that many of those who voted ‘Leave’ in the UK did so because they felt the EU was not democratic enough and that this sentiment is not specific to the UK.
MEPs are quick to stress that the European Parliament is the only EU institution where members are directly elected by EU citizens. Czech MEP Pavel Telicka, Vice-Chair of the Liberal group (ALDE) in the European Parliament summed-up the general feeling: ‘It would be a huge mistake to leave the Parliament out of the process. It would be a sign of democratic deficit. It would come back like a boomerang.’
Getting rid of the UK will be an opportunity for many in the European Parliament to put forward their agenda for a more integrated EU. Pervenche Beres passionately argues: ‘The UK’s exit defeats the idea that the internal market is all there should be to European integration.’
‘On Schengen and on the euro, we stopped in midstream and that’s a dangerous place to be in. As my British colleague Andrew Duff often says ‘we did enough to take the blame, but not enough to take credit’. We must now consolidate the euro, and complete the Economic and Monetary Union.’
Conservative MEP Constance Le Grip, a former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy, echoes that sentiment: ‘There are more and more of us at the European Parliament who consider that it cannot be ‘business as usual’ after Britain’s vote. It is high time we start thinking about giving the European project new foundations.’ Her colleague Philippe Juvin, also a French EPP MEP, has an idea what these new foundations should look like: ‘We need a new Treaty to reinforce the eurozone and Schengen. We are going towards a two-tier European Union, with some countries staying at the single market level and others who have the euro in common going towards further integration.’
To achieve any of these ambitions, Britain will have to be sacrificed. Brussels will not put up with any more of Britain’s tantrums, and will now only be thinking about its survival. It is about setting an example and speaking up to defend a strong EU. This is particularly true for the free movement of workers. Philippe Lamberts considers – and he is not the only one – that the UK is on this issue ‘deeply schizophrenic’: ‘You cannot on the one hand reduce the EU to a big single market an on the other hand reject free movement of workers. It is not one or the other.’ There is little chance today of any inflection on this issue.
Florian Philippot, a National Front MEP close to Marine le Pen, is unsurprisingly irritated by the reactions of his colleagues to Brexit: ‘To mistreat the British people and make it some kind of an example would be the worst choice possible: it would demonstrate that the EU hates the people and is all about punishing. If anything, it would reinforce defiance towards the EU.’
Whatever happens, the conditions of the UK’s exit and its future relationship with the EU will undoubtedly be influenced by the wider debate around the EU’s future. But what is clear from Brussels’ point of view is that Brexit is a done thing. A debate has already started about whether English should remain an official language of the EU. From across the benches at the European Parliament, be it with hope, sadness or even fear, the Members have one message in common for the British people: auf wiedersehen et bonne chance.
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