In all the controversy about the eurozone and Greece, it is easy to ignore one simple fact: that the bailouts and succession of crisis summits are creating an unstoppable momentum towards a United States of Europe.
Three weeks ago, Angela Merkel indicated very clearly her direction of travel. The eurozone crisis is, for her, the springboard for another pact to replace the Lisbon Treaty. ‘Step by step, European politics is merging with domestic politics,’ she said recently. Europe needed ‘comprehensive structural reform’. Member states ought to be ready to cede further powers to the EU, she continued, and the European Commission ought to function more as a European government with the Council of Ministers acting as a ‘second chamber’ alongside a strengthened European Parliament.
Intriguingly, she seems to have accepted that Britain would never agree to be a part of this — but she wants us around nonetheless. ‘We need Britain,’ she said. ‘I want to say this emphatically, because Britain has always given us a strong orientation in matters of competitiveness and freedom and in the development of the single European market.’ She wants a Europe that Britain could never accept, but will somehow be part of. So how to reconcile the two?
Enter Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship. She wants to start preparing for a new treaty that would create the sort of political union that Merkel envisages, and for which she will seek a mandate in the German federal election in autumn next year. The treaty would be drafted by 2016, ratified by 2019 and enter into force in 2020 if ratified by two thirds of members. Those who fail to ratify — Britain almost certainly included — would fall outside but remain members of the single market.
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