An enlarged European Union is something the bloc can now envisage as it looks to the end of this decade. By 2030, there may well be over 30 members in the EU, and probably more in the European Political Community. This is the vision that President Emmanuel Macron proposed on 9 May 2022 as a way of encouraging states not in the EU, but sharing its values, to work with each other.
This puts our ‘will they, won’t they let us back in’ into perspective.
It also suggests all kinds of possibilities for Keir Starmer as the review of the trade and cooperation agreement edges ever closer. He has reiterated that the UK isn’t at the moment looking to rejoin the single market or customs union: a position that is as incomprehensible from the geopolitical strategic point of view, as it is from the economic point of view. It is understandable only in terms of domestic electoral politics.
EU development and enlargement
Come 2030, only the barmiest of European governments would not want to be associated officially in some mutually beneficial arrangement with the EU. Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, and Georgia are among the most vocal requesting entry into the EU.
The EU recognises that the Balkan countries seek membership to shore up their political stability and improve their economic outlook. It is acutely aware too that EU enlargement can’t work without significant change in the way that EU institutions work and how decisions are taken.
At present, altering institutional arrangements and decision-making procedures usually requires constitutional reform and treaty change. That is a lengthy process. Now, greater pragmatism and an eye on adapting democratic practices to the digital age has led some to argue for participatory democracy – giving citizens a more direct say over policy direction, for example, through citizen assemblies. There is also interest in making decision-making by majority vote the norm rather than the exception, including in foreign policy areas. Currently, in some policy areas, just one member government can block something wanted by all the others.
Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine showed that decision-making needs to be expedited using majority voting, even in policy areas where the EU’s formal treaty authority is in its infancy.
An EU of concentric circles
In the past, expanding the scope of majority voting in the Council of Ministers (comprised of government members) to new policy areas was linked to the idea of deeper integration and shifts towards federalism. Now it is seen as a pragmatic means to an end: greater efficiency and democracy. So, building on the old idea of an EU of concentric circles, France and Germany are suggesting ways forward to allow EU members, aspiring members, and those on the fringes to have a role in shaping Europe’s future.
And that is where Starmer’s cautious approach comes in.
The UK has already participated in such circles: first as an EU member at the heart of Europe; second as an EU member with opt-outs in specific policy areas (no longer on offer); and third in the outer fringe of the three concentric circles at the launch of President Macron’s European Political Community.
The idea behind this is that a core group of states could thereby act and integrate more swiftly if they wanted to, without being held up by the rest, as happened when the single market was mooted. They would remain members of a wider EU doing things more slowly but progress would not be hostage to individual vetoes frustrating action, as for example Hungary on Ukraine.
A second circle could comprise associate members – like Turkey still is, and Greece was in the 1960s (Greece joined as a full member in 1981) – and those whose accession requests were being advanced. Finally, flanking that there would be the wider group, the European Political Community.
The foreign policy imperative
EU governments are anxious to find practical ways to reform the EU and boost its capacity to act, notably on foreign policy. In May, the ‘group of friends’ of nine member states (Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia and Spain) called for the reform of the EU’s common foreign and security policy in the light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and growing international challenges facing the EU. Several have tabled reform proposals, and EU enlargement is on the agenda for the governments’ meeting in October.
There is nothing sinister about the report from experts commissioned by the French and German governments. The original ideas behind European integration in the 1950s were based on the premise that each new generation would spur reforms in the light of experience.
All want to enhance Europe’s capacity to meet future challenges. All realise that this means current decision-making practices must change. Convening an intergovernmental conference to endorse reforms which some members might then prefer to put to referendums is not a realistic option when time is of the essence.
The UK should be at the heart of the European challenge
The EU can deal with reforming its institutions, for example, cutting the number of EU commissioners, not allowing the size of the European parliament to increase beyond 751 members (even if another ten states join, and British citizens resident in the EU secure 15 MEPs to represent them), and making majority voting the norm.
The EU can also deal with gradually accommodating wannabe member states. But it cannot credibly manage wider European challenges if the UK insists on relegating itself to a rock washed by the waves of the North Sea, the Atlantic and the Channel.
The EU is increasingly involved in defence, in all its guises. It has had to adapt its historical commitment – to only deliver civilian aid and humanitarian relief, not arms – to the realities of war on its borders. The UK under Margaret Thatcher encouraged it to break the taboo on defence cooperation.
Now the UK has to break its own taboo on speaking about and working with its geopolitical allies in Europe. Tiptoeing around being in or out of the single market doesn’t help. Nor does it help the UK to face the real world of perma-crises where going it alone is a nonsense.
It is doubtful that the UK can break free of its current woeful image as a tantrum-prone toddler not to be taken seriously unless it embraces the realities Europeans are grappling with. Can we imagine how much richer the debate would be if the UK were at its heart, rather than in self-imposed isolation on the periphery? Perhaps Starmer can.
