Читать книгу My Secret Brexit Diary - Michel Barnier - Страница 13

‘I don’t like this Michel Barnier.’ So, that’s settled then!

In a lengthy profile published by Le Monde in 2018, the great British photojournalist Sir Donald McCullin explains why he voted for Brexit.* The child of a poor family, born in London’s Finsbury Park, in March 2017 McCullin was awarded a knighthood. ‘We didn’t join Europe to be strangulated, to have our sovereignty destroyed… We joined the EU for economic reasons, and for defence and security, not to be told by Brussels what I’m allowed to put in my bin.’

This fear of having pedantic regulations imposed by Brussels, regarding environmental standards for example, is nothing new. Already in 1987, Gordon Cartwright, a character from the novel The Commissioner, gin and tonic in hand, proclaimed: ‘[W]e have to clip the wings of those bureaucrats in Brussels. Clip their wings, keep them under control, don’t you agree? Fair trade and competition is one thing, but bloody-minded interference is something else altogether.’

The author of this novel, published by Arrow, is a certain … Stanley Johnson, who worked at the European Commission during the 1980s, and expressed in his book the exasperation created at the time by regulatory zeal and the desire of certain Brussels technocrats to take everything in hand and fix it all perfectly.

I took the time to read Johnson’s book as part of my ‘research’ into the reasons that drove his son Boris, along with 17,410,742 other British citizens, to vote to leave the European Union.

So can we explain the vote as a rejection of a Europe that meddles in waste sorting and imposes too many environmental constraints ‘from above’?

Quite apart from the fact that the Europe of today is far more pragmatic and efficient than that of the 1980s, there are obviously other reasons, some of which are specific to the United Kingdom.

First of all, the feeling, to quote Sir Donald again, that ‘continental Europe is another world, of which England is not a part’. Europe is too different from the UK. This island country, facing out toward the ‘open sea’, draws from its glorious past the idea that it is better to stand alone.

And then there are other reasons related to the British political system, which is strongly bipartisan, preventing the concerns of many political groups and citizens from being properly represented in the capital. It is quite natural, then, that they should see a referendum or a European Election as an opportunity to express themselves.

Finally, the UK is home to a tabloid empire that makes it its daily business to denigrate the EU with simplistic arguments and false stories. The 2016 referendum campaign was fuelled by these caricatures and untruths. For example, as soon as the result was declared, the Leave campaign acknowledged that leaving the EU would not in fact enable £350 million a week to flow back into the NHS, the UK’s health system, as promised on their famous red bus. Similarly, the image of UKIP leader Nigel Farage posing in front of a billboard depicting crowds of migrants from Syria and elsewhere on the march deserves to be remembered as the apex of cynicism and a clouding of the issues, calling to mind the outrageous propaganda caricatures of another era.

But let’s face it, such shortcomings in the public debate on Europe are not the preserve of the British alone. There are also far too many EU politicians who keep a low profile, are ashamed of Europe, make no attempt to explain anything, and fail to take responsibility. I have long been convinced that it is the silence, the arrogance and the remoteness of European elites that fuels fear and encourages demagogy.

And then there is a final, even more serious reason, which is at work in all our countries, and certainly in many regions of France. It is the feeling that Europe, its governments and its institutions, are out of touch with the legitimate concerns of the people; discontent with a Europe that does nothing to protect against the excesses of globalization, a Europe that has for too long advocated deregulation and ultra-liberalism, with insufficient regard for the social and environmental consequences.

The financial crisis of 2008 very nearly brought it all down. The crisis was the result of a caricature of liberalism and a notion of ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ competition to which first London, and then Europe, had ended up conforming. It wrenched open great fault lines of poverty, exclusion and despair, which also go some way towards explaining the anti-European sentiment found in the UK and elsewhere.

This anger is also being expressed against a Europe that has not been able to control its external borders or convincingly demonstrate its solidarity. A Europe that has not been able to protect its industry, nor anticipate the digital revolution that is now intruding upon all aspects of our lives. A Europe seen as overly complex and insufficiently democratic. And above all, to put it bluntly, a Europe that no longer offers any promise of progress or any hope of a better future for all.

What was, and remains, the raison d’être of the European project? Since the 1950s, Europe has above all stood for the choice to face up to the great changes afoot in the world and to come to terms with them rather than just passively suffering them. To be the actor of its own destiny rather than a spectator. To assert a shared sovereignty, in an era when the nation alone is no longer enough. And finally, to pool resources on a continental scale in order to yield common benefits and to pursue projects that are larger than any one country.

The ECSC, the European Coal and Steel Community, formally established in 1951 in the wake of a war that left our continent in ruins, initiated the industrial reconstruction of Europe and, through this ‘de facto solidarity’, promoted a lasting peace between our nations.

The CAP, the Common Agricultural Policy, launched in 1962, enabled us to regain our collective food sovereignty and to preserve the diversity of territories, traceability and product quality.

The cohesion policy, developed from 1988 onwards under the impetus of Jacques Delors, has enabled the most disadvantaged regions progressively to catch up as our Union has expanded.

The transition from a set of national markets to a single market, in 1993, promoted the development of our companies, in particular SMEs and MSBs, while offering consumers more choice.

And since 1999, the single currency has facilitated trade between the countries that adopted it and shielded us from exchange rate risk. As is too often forgotten, the euro is also an instrument of emancipation, protecting us from American monetary hegemony. During the recent crises – the sovereign debt crisis, and then the current health crisis – it is the euro and the European Central Bank’s monetary policy that have saved us from the precipice.

All these shared benefits are something to be proud of! And we can also be proud of the fact that we have reinforced and shared them over time, especially since 1 May 2004, when Poland and nine other countries joined the EU in that great moment of reunification of the European continent. In fifteen years, we have welcomed – and it was no easy task! – more than a hundred million new European citizens who left poverty and dictatorship for the promise of shared progress. What other group of nations, what other continent, has achieved so much collectively? None.

But, for the past fifteen years at least, Europe has failed to mobilize Europeans around collective projects that respond to the great transformations afoot in the world. Transformations in the face of which our nations, alone, can do little: climate change and pandemic, industrial and technological change, the challenges of migration and of the invisible powers of financial markets and terrorism, the unilateralist temptation in the US, the rise of China and the influence of Russia.

If we really want to take on these challenges, then we must rediscover the ambition that first led to the construction of Europe, and begin building new common goods for the twenty-seven member countries. To be fair, the Commission has embarked upon some valuable initiatives in recent years. For the protection of our environment via the European Green Deal, for an industrial policy fit for the challenges of digital technology, artificial intelligence and sustainable energy, for a genuine European defence force, and for control of our external borders. And for continued control, via supervision, regulation and greater transparency, of the power of the financial markets and the new giants of the digital economy. We owe all of this to the generations to come. What we ourselves do not do for Europe, no one else will do for us.

Some time ago, on a train, I met Mark, a British professor who works in Amsterdam on European space policy. He summed up his misgivings about Brexit in a single sentence, eight words full of dreams and regrets: ‘Only together can we explore the Solar System.’

What is true for the Solar System is also true for other challenges. In the coming world, a world of increasingly powerful and uprooted continent-states and multinationals, no country in the European Union, whether the smallest or the largest, stands the slightest chance of safeguarding its sovereignty without combining it with that of its neighbours.

It is our duty to be clearsighted about this. Today, in the twenty-first century, where do the risks of servitude lie and how can we protect ourselves from them? The great illusion consists in the idea that we can face alone the often brutal transformations our world is going through. That we can stand alone against new political, economic and financial giants. And in believing in the promise of solitary identities and sovereignties, rather than in solidarity.

On the other hand, though, we can never meet these challenges if the European Union insists on conducting its business from Brussels, at odds with the identities and the sovereignty of the peoples that make it up.

We are not a European people. We do not want to be a European nation. Right now, we are twenty-seven separate populations, speaking twenty-four official languages. We are twenty-seven nations and we have twenty-seven states, each of which holds on to its differences, its traditions, and its culture.

People have their reasons, no doubt. And the feelings they express must be listened to and respected. I have never confused popular sentiment with populism.

I understand and I share every person’s special attachment to their country, to their homeland. But this rootedness can and must go hand-in-hand with a commitment to Europe.

Throughout my life I have had a certain idea of Europe. This idea has never replaced or weakened my pride in being French, or diminished the strength of my patriotism. ‘A patriot and a European’ – this is the best summary of my political position and my fundamental convictions.

We all have our regrets and our dreams. What I am certain of is that every citizen is needed. Each and every one of us has a role to play in maintaining the European dream alongside our national dream.

At the end of this long negotiation, it was this same message I chose to convey when, at the beginning of 2021, I was invited to speak by European Movement Ireland: ‘Ní neart go cur le chéile.’*

The European Union will never be a panacea for all ills. It cannot and must not be. Indeed, it is quite right for it to take a back seat when the burden of its standards threatens to stifle local initiative or inflame national resentments.

But by working together at all levels, we can build a Europe that protects and inspires us. A Europe that Europeans will not want to leave. A Europe that allows us once more to be stronger together in the world. We have to approach this world with our eyes open, without nostalgia for past glories. It is a world which will only become safer if it becomes fairer.

It’s very late in the day. But it’s not too late.

My vote is cast!

A referendum was being held – a different referendum – and this was my very first vote as a young French citizen… Early in the morning of 23 April 1972, in a town hall in Val des Roses, Albertville, a place so familiar to me.

Once a church, the hall had now been claimed for more republican purposes: it frequently hosted public meetings and, on election days, this was where the polling station was set up.

On that particular day, the question submitted to the French people by President of the Republic Georges Pompidou was a simple one: ‘Do you agree with the new opportunities opening up in Europe, the draft law submitted to the French people by the President of the Republic, and authorizing the ratification of the Treaty concerning the accession of the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland and Norway to the European Communities?’

For the Gaullist party, the answer to this question was not so obvious. Some years earlier, in 1963 and then again in 1967, General de Gaulle had vetoed the accession of the United Kingdom. But times had changed and so had the French president, and a young Gaullist activist like myself had no qualms about answering ‘yes’ to the question.

Moreover, this was the first time citizens of my country had been directly consulted on the European project. I remember well how the question divided socialist leaders, and in particular how Georges Pompidou, who had established a constructive relationship with Edward Heath, the British Prime Minister at the time, was able to use the referendum as a way to gracefully move on from his illustrious predecessor’s double veto.

I have never regretted the vote I cast that day.