A multi-speed formula will shape Europe’s future

Wolfgang Münchau

Back in the 1990s, I used to discuss the future of Europe with friends and colleagues.
We had different aspirations. Some of us, me included, wanted a narrow, federal
Europe with a central government and parliament; others preferred a wider,
decentralised Europe; and then there was a third group in favour of what they called
“variable geometry” — a multi-speed Europe in which overlapping groups of
countries would integrate in different policy areas. The debate is back on the official
agenda, this time not out of choice but necessity. The EU is in trouble. Its monetary
union crawls from one crisis to the next. Its immigration policies are a mess. One
member voted to leave. Another, Poland, is isolating itself diplomatically. Beata
Szydlo, the Polish prime minister, last week vetoed a resolution of the European
Council in protest over the re-election of Donald Tusk, an erstwhile political rival.
She is holding Europe to ransom over a battle that is really about domestic politics. In
France and Italy, some leading opposition politicians are advocating a withdrawal
from the euro. A few days before last week’s summit, the leaders of France,
Germany, Italy and Spain met to express a preference for a multi-speed Europe, on
lines similar to the variable geometry some of my friends favoured two decades ago.
They arrived at this conclusion through a process of elimination. A federal Europe of
27 member states is out of the question because that would require deep changes to
the European treaties that would stand no chance of being approved by all. Doing
nothing is not much of an option either. So there is no alternative to variable
geometry. But what would it mean in practice? We should distinguish between
different varieties. The first would consist of deeper integration based on the
enhanced co-operation clauses in European law. These allow a group of at least nine
member states to press ahead with legislation with each other. This excludes areas of
common interest, such as the single market or the customs union. While enhanced co-
operation sounds like a good idea, a word of caution is in order. It has been around
since the 1990s and was given more prominence in the Lisbon treaty. One of the
authors of this particular clause told me that he wrote it to provide a legal foundation
for the eurozone to develop into a closer political union. But the clause has only been
used three times — for divorce law, the European patent and on property rights for
international couples. Not exactly an ambitious list. It is worth studying the failures of
the procedure. A group of member states wanted to use enhanced co-operation to
agree on a financial transaction tax. They became bogged down by disagreements,
before the realisation dawned that, if only nine countries signed up to such a tax, they
might put themselves at a competitive disadvantage compared with those member
states that refused to take part. The second version of variable geometry is more
radical and, in the final analysis, the only one that respects the political constraints
and the need to solve the EU’s problems. European integration belongs to the
category of things that are simultaneously inevitable and impossible. More integration
is needed if Europe is to manage an economically divergent monetary union; to
strengthen defence-co-operation at a time when Donald Trump, the US president, is
casting doubt on the future of Nato; and to remain credible when confronted by
assertive neighbours, notably Russia and Turkey. At the same time it is impossible
because the kind of treaty change needed to construct such an edifice is unrealistic.
The way out of this trap is to accept a process of disintegration followed by
reintegration. The EU as constituted is monolithic. It is stuck with a legal framework
for everybody that suits nobody. The best option would be a structure with a
reasonably integrated core, surrounded by a less integrated outer layer. All member
states would be part of a customs union and the single market but not necessarily the
single currency or the interior and foreign and security policy apparatus. Freedom of
movement could be defined as a right obligatory for members of the inner group but
voluntary for the others. Countries in the outer sphere would have the right, but not
the obligation, to join core policy areas. The outer layer would thus not be monolithic
either. Such a structure would even allow the UK to rejoin after it leaves the bloc. But
it would be rejoining not the EU as we know it but a more flexible successor
organisation, with a different legal basis. Europe’s dilemmas are solvable if one opens
up the institutional fabric. Otherwise, there is no alternative but to muddle through in
the hope that nothing happens. And we know where that ends.

Available at: https://www.ft.com/comment/columnists/wolfgang-munchau.