A New Deal for a New Europe?

Spending a gloriously warm, sunny late summer afternoon indoors in a lecture theatre is maybe not everyone’s idea of fun, but those people who signed up for the New Europeans’ debate on A New Deal for a New Europe but didn’t come this afternoon really missed a treat. Three major political groups from the European Parliament — the Socialists (PES), the Liberals (ALDE) and the European People’s Party (EPP, from which David Cameron, alas, withdrew the Conservatives) — were represented by the current President of the EPP group in the parliament, former Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Sergei Stanishev, the President of the ALDE Party (and former group leader) Sir Graham Watson, and Dirk Hazelll, Chairman of the UK Chapter of the EPP. There was a remarkable degree of agreement between the three, perhaps partly because all believe fervently that Britain ought to stay in the EU, both for the sake of Britain and for the sake of the EU. Graham Watson feared that in the current mood in the UK the referendum vote (on some still unspecified date in 2016 or 2017) could go the wrong way. That is why the “remain” campaign needs to fight hard. Sergei Stanishev (who was en route to the Labour Party conference in Brighton) spoke of the need for a truly European response to the great challenges the Union currently faces, including the refugee and migrant “crisis”.

Despite being a former Chairman of London Conservatives, Dirk Hazell lambasted David Cameron for his failure of leadership and the folly of the ambivalent Tory attitude towards Europe. Graham interestingly stated he thought that Britain ought to be part of Schengen, which got some murmurs of support from the predominantly young audience, and he argued that maybe Britain should have joined the eurozone when it had the chance, under Tony Blair. The whole history of the subsequent 15 or so years might have been different. Of course, there is not much to be gained (except as an academic exercise) in considering might-have-beens, and in principle the meeting was about the way forward. The eurozone is emerging from its own crisis, though one could be forgiven for not knowing so from reading the British press, but there needs to radical reform of the EU as a whole to make it fit for purpose. The big question for the UK is whether David Cameron can frame positive rather than negative demands for reform, and bring other member states onside through negotiation, rather than scaring them away with impossible demands.

Community Voices: EU Migrants in England

Freedom of movement is one of the pillars of the European single market, something that is not only good for business and the economy but good for individuals as well, as a majority of younger people in this country understand. Yet the Conservative government, egged on by the more repulsive elements of the right-wing Press, is trying to renegotiate some aspects of freedom of movement as part of a package that David Cameron wants to put before the British public in a referendum on the country’s EU membership some time over the next couple of years. On that he will fail, as there is no way that countries such as Poland will accept some of the things he has been suggesting. And why should the Poles? They — along with migrants from our other 26 partner states — have made a huge contribution to the British economic recovery. They pay in, in taxes, NIC etc, far more than they take out of our welfare state, and although UKIP and the more extreme Tory head-bangers may moan about the fact that there are over two million EU migrants in the UK they conveniently ignore the fact that there are almost as many Brits living on the continent. Yet the British public knows very little of the reality, often preferring to swallow scare stories from the Daily Express.

So it is a matter for congratulation that the NGO New Europeans has been running a series of meetings in England and Wales looking at the reality of the impact of EU migration on communities. The final one of these was held at Europe House in Westminster this evening, featuring a couple of academic presentations on the evidence before break-out sessions on the themes of health, education, housing and jobs. One point that really came home to me was how the Labour government in 2004 failed to make adequate provisions for the inevitable influx of workers from Poland in particular. The Labour Party has now renounced that policy of opening up to the new EU member states (just as it is busy renouncing most of its previous progressive policies at the moment in a scramble to sell itself to middle Britain). In the event, the migrants were blamed for what were in fact the British government’s shortcomings. It was interesting to hear from young researchers from Southampton how many Poles there have set up businesses, creating jobs, not ‘stealing’ them.Although we do not know when the referendum is going to be, it is essential that the true facts be in the public domain. Too often, with organisations such as Migration Watch active in the field we are seeing policy-driven evidence rather than evidence-driven policy being propagated. And as every true academic knows, that is classic bad practice.

The Great European Disaster Movie

Thanks to UKIP there has been a lot of discussion in Britain over the past year about a possible Brexit from the European Union. But there has been little realistic scenario-building about what would happen if the UK did leave (presumably after an IN/OUT referendum in which a majority vote OUT). However, the Italian film director Annalisa Piras has made a film imagining the fallout if a Brexit caused the EU to break up and be dissolved. The film was shown on BBC Four on 1 March (followed by a Newsnight discussion), but last night, at my lovely local Genesis Cinema in Stepney, and in conjunction with Cinema Italia UK and the NGO New Europeans, the full director’s cut was shown, followed by a debate including Ms Piras, the film’s executive producer, Bill Emmott (a former editor of the Economist) and others. The film itself mixes a fictional narrative centring on a British academic (played by Angus Deayton) explaining to a young girl sitting beside him on a plane going through a thunderstorm what the (now defunct) EU was all about. But most of the film is made up of news-reel material and interviews with politicians, journalists and others from a wide range of EU member states from France to Croatia. What happened in the Balkans in the 1990s reminds us that the possibility of War in Europe did not end completely in 1945, even if it is now unthinkable between EU member states. Indeed, footage from Kiev in Ukraine in the film underlined the point about the current dangers in the European neighbourhood; to confront them, Europe needs to be strong and united. Similarly, though the financial crisis nearly brought about the destruction of the euro and set back many member states’ economies only in solidarity can the 28 meet the challenges of global economic forces. Because there are so many interviews in the film the effect is kaleidoscopic, but my favourite without a doubt is one with a German lady of a certain age who proudly displays the iron crosses awarded to her ancestors over a century of conflicts, but who celebrates the fact that her children and grandchildren will never add to that collection by having to fight in a European war. The film’s ending is apocalyptic, as the plane is turned away from various airports and crashes (though the little girl parachutes out), which will doubtless reinforce criticism from Euro-sceptics that the movie is didactic and over the top. Despite that, it is in fact thought-provoking and deserves to be seen by a wider audience, not least students and other youth. They “get” the European project much more than their elders tend to do, and it is their future which is at stake.