Stephen Booth is Head of the Britain in the World Project at Policy Exchange.
At last weekend’s G7 summit in Germany, Emmanuel Macron tweeted that the Prime Minister had “expressed interest” in his new grand project, a proposal for a European Political Community. An Elysée Palace spokesman suggested the UK delegation showed “beacoup d’enthousiasme” for the idea.
Earlier this week, Downing Street sources and Liz Truss appeared sceptical that Macron’s proposal would appeal to the UK. However, in a further twist, yesterday afternoon, the Prime Minister told reporters that Macron’s idea was “worth looking at” and even laid claim to coming up with the idea first. “I had this idea back when I first became foreign secretary,” Johnson said. “There’s got to be a role for all of us in a wider conversation about issues that affect all of us.”
So, does this mark a new shared Franco-British vision for organising security and diplomatic relations across the European Continent? Not quite. As the Prime Minister acknowledged, “I think possibly what’s going on here is that there are several different ideas.”
Macron first outlined his proposal on 9 May in a speech to the European Parliament. His European Political Community would be open to those countries in the European neighbourhood who may or may not one day join the EU, and “it would not be closed to those who have left the EU”, i.e. Britain. However, while Macron has suggested his proposed new club could provide a vehicle for UK-EU relations, the primary consideration is the politically delicate matter of responding to Ukraine’s application to join the EU following the Russian invasion.
Ukraine’s membership bid was backed strongly and early by Eastern EU states, and EU leaders granted Ukraine and Moldova candidate status last week. However, Macron has also argued that the accession process cannot be fast-tracked and Ukraine must be held to the same standards as other candidates. He said the process could therefore “take several years, and most likely several decades.”
Macron’s solution is that his proposal could provide a means of binding Ukraine to the EU pending a lengthy accession process. It would provide a similar function for other EU membership candidates, particularly among the Western Balkans. He added that –
“This new European organisation would allow democratic European nations that subscribe to our shared core values to find a new space for political and security cooperation, cooperation in the energy sector, in transport, investments, infrastructures, the free movement of persons and in particular of our youth.”
This description sounds a lot like a “shadow EU” replicating much of what Brussels does already. It reflects previous Macron speeches advocating a “Europe of several circles”. At the heart of Macron’s proposed architecture is a more deeply integrated core group centred on the eurozone and inevitably led by France and Germany. The next circle consists of EU members outside of this core group, and Macron’s proposed European Political Community is the latest French attempt to define an outer tier of EU satellites.
Between 1989 and 1991, Francois Mitterrand proposed a European Confederation stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals. After the fall of the iron curtain, the proposal was for a Europe of concentric circles in which the Central and Eastern European countries would be put in a political halfway house, providing a path to deeper political integration in Western Europe. The organisation would provide a forum for cooperation with the Soviet Union but excluded the United States. Understandably, the newly free Central and Eastern nations were not keen on sharing a new club with the Soviet Union and did not wish to be confined to a second-class European status. Consequently, Mitterrand’s project failed to attract support outside of France.
Macron’s proposal suffers from similar flaws. Because it is defined as an outer tier of EU membership, it is likely to both alienate Britain and prospective EU members who see it as an attempt to hold them at arm’s length indefinitely.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has stated that “no alternative to EU membership for Ukraine would be acceptable.” If Macron’s project were to keep his country permanently out of the EU, “it would be discriminatory, unfair and would contradict public statements from France and other countries that Ukraine is part of the European family,” he added.
Meanwhile, the UK already has a bespoke trade and cooperation agreement with the EU, which could be developed further in the future if thorny issues such as the Northern Ireland Protocol can be resolved. However, while Macron’s suggestion that the free movement of people should be a building block of his political community might appeal to aspirant EU members, it is an instant red flag that is likely to be anathema to any British government.
This is not the first time that Macron has tried to find a role for the UK in a post-Brexit relationship. He had previously suggested a European Security Council, yet the perennial question of how any new European security architecture would sit alongside and not distract from NATO remains. Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO, following a deal brokered with Turkey, simply illustrates the pre-eminence of the transatlantic alliance in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
Johnson’s admittedly briefly sketched out alternative to Macron’s political community would be a lot wider, including North Africa, and therefore need to be a looser institutional configuration. “My view is that we should rebuild the whole concept. I think that Turkey should be there. I think that Maghreb should be there and I think we should basically be recreating the Mare Nostrum of the Roman empire,” he said yesterday. “I think possibly rather than inventing new structures, let’s look at building up relationships.”
On the subject of building relationships, the Johnson-Macron meeting at the G7 summit appears to have proven something of a positive step towards a reset in Anglo-French relations. Both leaders have identified the opportunity and need for a wider European dialogue. However, delivering the right vehicle requires further thought and cannot be premised on the idea that non-EU states are merely satellites of Brussels.