EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom (UK) promised to the British public to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership in the European Union (EU) by the end of 2017. To enhance the chance of a positive outcome of the ballot, the British Premier requested that the EU undertake reforms to address the concerns of British constituents over the UK membership in the bloc. The initial reactions of EU leaders appear to be positive. However, there are several risks that both sides run in accommodating the British requests. This is so because both the procedure and the political context of the UK scheme are unprecedented. The debate on the British reform proposals came at the worst moment for the EU. It would be overly optimistic to believe that the coming discourse will strengthen the organisation’s cohesion. Instead, the debate will contribute to the further disintegration of the Union.
INTRODUCTION
British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged in 2013 to hold an in/out referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU if his party wins the parliamentary election in 2015. Mr Cameron argued that the disillusionment with the EU had increased considerably. The negative sentiments required to consult the British people on the UK’s membership in the Union, the Prime Minister contended. He also promised that he would renegotiate the UK’s relationship with the EU first to make changes to the way the bloc works and then put the British EU membership to referendum.
Having won a new mandate at the general election of 2015, Mr Cameron held a series of exploratory talks with fellow EU leaders on the British ideas of reforming the EU. Following his meetings with the EU leaders, the Prime Minister wrote a letter to the President of the European Council on November 10, 2015, outlining the EU reforms he deems necessary to address the concerns of British constituents over UK membership in the bloc. The Prime Minister identified four areas where he plans to renegotiate the terms of British EU membership: economic governance, competitiveness, sovereignty, and immigration. The UK seeks to achieve a legally binding and irreversible agreement with the other 27 EU member states based on the British proposals. Mr Cameron expressed his belief that the reforms that his country was advancing were “both reasonable and in the wider interest of the European Union”. Should the reform of the four areas be realised, the Prime Minister is ready to campaign with all his “heart and soul” to keep the UK in the Union. Mr Cameron promised to hold a referendum on UK membership of the EU by the end of 2017 at the latest.
Initial reactions of EU leaders have showed a level of understanding of the British domestic context which led Mr Cameron to seek reforms in some areas of the EU. London’s political, economic and cultural leverage provides a compelling case for EU member states to go the extra mile to satisfy the concerns of British citizens over the UK’s EU membership. The Prime Minister’s letter suggests that his peers in the European Council, the ultimate decision-making body of the EU heads of state or government, are inclined to accommodate the British demands.
ANALYSIS
Despite the allegedly positive environment for meeting the British objectives, it is worth exploring to what extent the demands of the UK may expand the challenges the Union has faced recently. For one, the British Prime Minister faces an exhausted Union that has grown tired of constant crises that it failed to handle meaningfully. As a result, the EU appears increasingly disintegrated. The mishandling of the Greek debt crisis and the migration flow unnerved the EU. Consequently, the Eurozone and the overall economic landscape of the Union, the Schengen border-free zone, the Dublin system of the EU asylum policy, and the enforcement of the principle of the free movement of people are all damaged. Further, the horrifying terror attack against France on November 13, 2015, instantly transformed the EU’s priority list. From the perspective of the new political reality that makes security the number one concern for the European public, Mr Cameron’s wish list appears rather self-absorbed and minor. Thus, notwithstanding the Prime Minister’s optimism, the odds are against him. Although Mr Cameron attempted to portray his proposals as benevolent and serving the interests of the EU, both sides run several risks in accommodating the British requests. Both the procedure and the political context of the UK scheme are unprecedented. Moreover, considering the overall situation in the EU, member states would be best advised not to embark on a process that may lead to another discord that may widen fault lines among EU leaders and risk spiralling out of control. Here are some of the pitfalls that likely will follow from the unprecedented process the UK led the EU to undertake.
First, to make the appearance of the British statement of terms business as usual the Prime Minister’s letter referred to some analogies in the EU history that he believed corresponding to the present situation. Mr Cameron specifically argued that Denmark and Ireland also reached a settlement with other EU member states to address the concerns of Danish and Irish citizens. The Prime Minister’s parallels, however, are rather unconvincing. It is, of course, true that the EU respects the “national identities [of the member states], inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional”. This idea is enshrined in the founding treaty of the Union. It is also correct that the EU has repeatedly concluded special arrangements with member states to accommodate their individual concerns. Nonetheless, Prime Minister Cameron’s argument is rather misleading.
The EU has four well-established procedures to deal with national concerns of its present and future member states. None of these mechanisms is analogical to the British case that makes it difficult to addressing the UK demands. The member states can engineer a favourable outcome for themselves in a given policy area during the EU legislative procedure. EU institutions strive to accommodate national interests to a large extent, and avoid adopting measures that would harm core national concerns of one or several member states (1). The EU candidate countries also may request permanent or temporary derogations from specific provisions of the EU legal framework to protect a vital national interest. The accession process leading to EU membership is the proper and only legal framework to address such requests of the candidate countries (2). During the amendment of the EU founding treaties, member states can realize certain exemptions from the application of the new rules as well, provided that these exceptions do not impede the rest of the bloc from applying the novel measures (3). Finally, in some member states constitutional arrangements require that a newly adopted EU treaty is put to a referendum for national ratification. A negative outcome in the referendum may result in the need to work out a special arrangement -typically derogation from some of the newly adopted rules - for the member state concerned (4). The latter example is the case of Denmark and Ireland that Mr Cameron referred to in his letter. It is important to note though that the ratification of the newly adopted founding EU treaties by referendum in Denmark and Ireland was a constituent element of the EU ratification procedure itself (usually, the respective national parliaments of the EU member states ratify the newly adopted EU treaties and the treaties are not put to referendum, except for Denmark and Ireland). Thus, following the negative outcome of the referenda the political and legal need arose to handle the potential adverse effect on Denmark and Ireland: they were not able to enforce the new treaties. This is clearly not analogous to the British case. Thus, referring to the examples of Denmark and Ireland is misplaced.
Therefore, the procedure Mr Cameron chose to achieve EU reforms does not correspond to any of the well-established procedures of the Union to accommodate individual national concerns. Another dissimilarity between the usual method of accommodating a particular national interest and the present UK demands is related to the context in which a need for a special arrangement arises. The EU has not adopted nor is it about to adopt any new rule that the British constituents and government could be concerned about. On the contrary, the UK demands a derogation from those rules that subsequent British parliaments ratified and governments enforced, including those that were part of the EU legal body at the time the UK joined the bloc in 1973. None of the EU member states requested such derogation before. Thus, the UK proposals are unique in the sense that the British government wants to change the rules of the game that the country already has abided by for decades. This facet of the request is out of the ordinary.
The British reform ideas are unprecedented because they not only aim to obtain a derogation from EU law that the UK has enforced. Also, Mr Cameron’s proposals involve the creation of an indefensible precedent. Accommodating the British request establishes an unnecessary precedent for other EU member states to advance their agendas, and to select the obligations of EU membership from which they want to be released if the public mood changes.
Second, although Mr Cameron said that the UK aims to enact reforms which serve the interest of the EU, the demands had been devised as threats, rather than proposals. The take-it-or-leave-it character of the British requests are eloquently formulated in the last part of the letter addressed to the President of the European Council:
“I hope and believe that together we can reach agreement on each of these four areas. If we can, I am ready to campaign with all my heart and soul to keep Britain inside a reformed European Union”.
For Mr Cameron to put the country’s EU membership to a referendum was a political choice. Seeking to reform the EU is part of the gambit to convince British constituents that their concerns regarding the UK membership in the EU have been addressed, and they can confidently vote for continued UK membership in the bloc. To use a referendum on EU-related matters for domestic political purposes is not unprecedented in EU member states. For instance, the so-called Constitutional Treaty of 2004 that completed a large-scale reform process in the EU put to a referendum in Denmark, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and also the UK in 2005. The motivation behind the national governments’ decisions to hold a referendum, however, was very similar to their domestic political calculus. The Constitutional Treaty envisaged a significant change in the working of the EU. In particular, a transfer of sovereignty from the member states to the EU in a number of areas. At the time the reform was perceived as unprecedented, even historic, in that it called for popular support of the new treaty. Another area where national governments avail to referendum is related to the EU accession process. From 1973, a majority of candidate countries to EU accession held a referendum. These popular votes took place after the completion of the accession negotiations to confirm the forthcoming membership of the countries concerned in the EU. Therefore, the political perspective of these referenda were dissimilar from the upcoming referendum in the UK.
The political context of the UK demands is unparalleled, as well. Mr Cameron had put the UK’s EU membership to a referendum before he outlined the reform proposals for the EU. A disenchanted interpretation may lead to the conclusion that the EU reform process is nothing more than a bargaining chip for Mr Cameron in the British domestic debate. It is so because he also made clear that he would be able to support the UK’s continued membership in the Union only if the British reform proposals would be accepted. The EU member states arguably can portray the Prime Minister’s proposal as an ultimatum. That particular aspect of the proposal is without precedent, too.
Third, what the UK seeks to achieve in enhancing the competitiveness of the Union, reducing excessive regulation on businesses, or advocating for the completion of the process of establishing a single digital market are straightforward and require relatively harmless political commitment from EU leaders. These suggestions easily can be portrayed as beneficial for the whole of the bloc, and to a large extent concur with the political programme of the European Commission, the EU executive body. If the British demands had stopped here Mr Cameron would have deserved much praise. There are, however, certain risks for both sides in negotiating the substance of the UK proposals that aim to achieve derogations for London from legally binding EU law (e.g., immigration) and entail substantive reform of EU treaties (e.g., economic governance). There is no space here to assess the merits of each proposal and the extent of reform the British demands involve. Suffice it to say that a significant part of Mr Cameron’s list of measures implies more than cosmetic changes to EU law.
Mr Cameron is confident that his exploratory talks with fellow EU leaders produced a favourable atmosphere for substantive negotiations. It is, however, far from certain that the details of any potential settlement will produce satisfactory results for the UK. The EU leaders may ask Mr Cameron to accept a compromise. The negotiations, after all, may fall short of his ambitious agenda. Will such an outcome be considered a win for the Eurosceptics in the UK, or rather a political defeat for Mr Cameron?
Mr Cameron has presented the EU member states with a rather peculiar political and legal conundrum when he compelled the whole bloc to please him. It is very unlikely that the EU member states will compassionately sign up for the British wish list, as Mr Cameron believes. More probably, embarking on the negotiations of the UK’s reform ideas, will allow some member states to advance their agenda. Once the Pandora’s box is opened, it may prove arduous to close. Therein lies the biggest and unforeseen risk of this gamble. The EU leaders have given little thought to how they plan to limit the debate, and contain the potential damage it may cause to the already depleted trust and diminished cohesion among the heads of state or government. The highly emotional discourse on the Greek debt crisis, and the subsequently heated migration debate clearly displayed the fault lines among EU member states.
A policy debate on the points Mr Cameron raised in his letter predicts that the discourse likely will be divisive. For instance, social benefit dispensed to nationals of EU member states working in another member state is a pivotal achievement of the same EU single market that the UK allegedly champions when it comes to financial services or the single digital market. The British demand to cut back on these benefits most concerns those Central and Eastern European member states whose nationals are working in the UK in large numbers. Mr Cameron can hardly capitalise on the support of these member states to satisfy his wish. The objective of limiting such benefits certainly will not lift European spirit in the debate. On the contrary, proposing a step back from a significant attainment of European integration amounts to disintegration. Therefore, in the current crisis situation, negotiating the British terms can only undermine the declined stability of the EU, deplete the already meagre cohesion, and reinforce disintegration forces.
CONCLUSION
The debate on the British reform proposals clearly came at the worst moment for the EU. It would be overly optimistic to believe that the coming discourse will only strengthen cohesion and resolve of EU member states to further the cause of European integration. Instead, the debate will only satisfy those in the UK and beyond who believe the British are better off without the burdens of EU membership, a community that is advancing rapidly towards disintegration.
CONCLUSION FOR POLICY
- Negotiating on the UK demands is a precondition to keep Britain in the EU. The EU member states have expressed their willingness to settle London’s concerns on its membership in the Union. Both the EU and the UK have vested interests in maintaining Britain's EU membership. Besides the political and economic benefits of the membership, avoiding disintegration is another objective that EU leaders may wish to realize. Thus, a rift with the UK is not an option for the EU.
- Nonetheless, EU leaders have to handle the debate on the British proposals very cautiously. It appears sensible to define the scope and extent of the discourse in advance to prevent potential escalation of the problems of the EU workings beyond solving Mr Cameron’s concerns. Before the first substantive debate session the EU leaders can, for instance, adopt a set of conclusions, the usual format of making political guidelines, laying out the framework of the debate on the British demands. Moreover, the leadership team of France and Germany must keep the debate concise.
- In the midst of the crises the EU has faced lately, EU leaders would be best advised to focus on how to accommodate the British concerns without further damaging the European integration project. Therefore, to the extent feasible, preference should be given to symbolic political commitments and unilateral derogation from the EU treaties to the UK, as opposed to substantive amendments to the founding treaties that would entail disintegration of policy areas. Differentiated integration - that is derogation for the UK to opt-out from an EU policy - maintains the possibility of a later opt-in while discounting an achievement of the integration to satisfy London may result in long-term damage to the Union.