Brentry
2016; Wiley; Volume: 58; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/criq.12285
ISSN1467-8705
Autores Tópico(s)Political Systems and Governance
ResumoOn 23 June, the UK voted to leave the European Union. The weeks since then have been surreal. The cliché of the moment is that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, which is by definition true but hardly very helpful. While the rest of Europe waits for decision-makers in London to decide what they want (their options are in fact rather limited), it is perhaps worthwhile reminding ourselves of why it was that the EU developed in a supranational rather than a purely intergovernmental direction in the first place; and why Britain and others, initially suspicious of this supranationalism, eventually decided to join it. There are both political and economic reasons underlying the peculiar nature of European economic integration. Politically, ever since 1945 there has been a constituency favourably disposed towards supranational European institutions, viewed as a good thing in their own right. This is hardly surprising, given the history of the previous half-century. (Perhaps it is not surprising, either, that there was not the same demand for political integration in the United Kingdom, whose wartime experience had been so different.) But there were also solid economic grounds for building an EEC, and later on an EC and EU, on deeper institutional foundations than would have been required by a mere free-trade area alone. For example, interventionist agricultural policies were the norm in post-war Europe: they were seen as necessary in order to ensure food security, but also for political reasons. A free-trade deal involving agriculture therefore meant replicating these policies at the European level. A common agricultural policy required common institutions, so that member states could agree on what the policy should be, and so that the policy could be implemented. A common external tariff was also regarded as desirable, not just because it would give the EEC greater bargaining power on the international stage, but because a mere free-trade area, in which different countries were free to set their own tariffs, would require internal customs barriers.1 Once again, institutional structures were required in order to determine what this common external tariff should be, and to negotiate on behalf of the EEC as a whole with its trade partners. Some governments, notably the French, worried that their industries would be placed at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis industries in other countries whose social welfare systems were less well developed. A logical response was to argue that a common market required common social policies, and once again this required some sort of institutional framework. As Alan Milward put it, ‘The problem genuinely was how to construct a commercial framework which would not endanger the levels of social welfare which had been reached … The Treaties of Rome had to be also an external buttress to the welfare state.’2 And so, the Treaty of Rome (1957) which established the European Economic Community, as well as EURATOM, envisaged not just a customs union, but also inter alia a Common Agricultural Policy (which, as suggested above, was a logical consequence of the former), the free movement of capital and labour, common competition rules, and the harmonisation of social policies. Britain's initial response to all of this was overtly hostile. The UK had been invited to join in the negotiations which eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and indeed it participated in them for a few months. However, it withdrew from the discussions in November 1955, and tried to convince both the Americans and the Germans to withdraw their support from the project. Britain did not at that stage want to join a customs union, which would have implied imposing tariffs on goods arriving from Commonwealth countries, and it was suspicious of the supranational nature of the project. At the same time, it worried that being outside a successful customs union might place it at a competitive disadvantage – hence its attempts to scuttle the project. As we know, these attempts came to nothing. Nor was Britain any more successful in its attempt to pursue a plan B, or ‘Plan G’ as it was known. This was to have been a Europe-wide free-trade area, including the EEC as a member, to be negotiated at the same time as the EEC itself. The hope was that the two sets of negotiations would be concluded simultaneously, so that the UK would at no stage find itself being discriminated against. Some have also suggested (although this is a matter of controversy) that London hoped that, by providing German exporters with an alternative route to free trade, German support for the EEC might be undermined. Neither hope was realised. The priority for France, Germany, Italy, and the Benelux countries was to successfully conclude the EEC negotiations: entering a separate set of negotiations simultaneously would have seriously complicated their task, and might indeed have undermined support for the project, as some in Britain apparently hoped. Not only did Britain misjudge the interests of these six governments, it also misjudged the interests of the other European governments involved as well. It favoured a free-trade area limited to industrial products alone, since its agricultural policies were very different from those prevailing in the rest of Europe.3 However, a free-trade area involving industrial goods only was of no interest to other European countries, for whom agricultural exports were important. According to James Ellison, the British failed to pay sufficient attention to other countries' interests when designing ‘Plan G’, being focused instead on internal British political considerations.4 Not surprisingly, such an approach was not conducive to achieving diplomatic success. Will Britain be any more successful this time if it attempts to have its cake and eat it? Britain's response was the creation of the European Free Trade Area, established by the Stockholm Convention signed in January 1960. This was (and remains) a purely intergovernmental organisation, with very little in the way of institutional structure: an organisation very much along the lines that Britain had advocated throughout the 1950s. Britain hoped that the organisation would prevent other countries from falling into the EEC orbit, and also that it would be a means to negotiate an industrial free-trade agreement with the EEC. But no sooner had this been achieved than Britain performed a startling U-turn. In July 1961, Harold Macmillan decided to apply for membership of the EEC. There were several reasons for this, and there is considerable debate as to which were most important. Derek Urwin lists three economic considerations.5 First, the UK traded more with the EEC than with EFTA, and in the absence of a wider free-trade agreement EEC membership might be required in order to protect Britain's export trade there. Second, Commonwealth trade was becoming less important for the UK, as colonies achieved independence and opted to pursue inward-looking trade and development policies. Third, the EEC was at this stage experiencing a golden age of economic growth, which heightened the importance of its markets to Britain and strengthened worries about British economic performance. The hope was that industrial competition with Germany would serve to improve productivity at home. There were also important political considerations. Particularly important was the attitude of the US.6 America had always been favourably disposed towards European political integration. It had strongly argued in favour of a European customs union at the time when the Organisation for European Economic Co-Operation was being negotiated, in the late 1940s. It had made it clear to Britain in 1955 that it did not share its hostility towards the nascent EEC. By discriminating against its exports, regional trade arrangements in Europe imposed a direct economic cost on the US, but the US was willing to pay this price if that were necessary in order to obtain moves towards European political integration. On the other hand, a European free-trade area which did not involve supranational political elements offered economic costs, with no political benefits, and the same was true of EFTA. The US was therefore hostile to EFTA, while remaining strongly supportive of the EEC. Gradually, British policymakers began to realise that if they wished to retain a special relationship with the US, they would need to join the Common Market, rather than remaining aloof from it. For Miriam Camps this was ‘a very important – perhaps the controlling – element in Mr. Macmillan's own decision that the right course for the United Kingdom was to apply for membership’.7 President Obama's intervention during the 2016 referendum campaign, when he came out strongly in favour of continued British membership of the European Union, should not have come as a surprise to anyone. Britain was not the only European country which was reticent about engaging in supranational political projects: so were the Scandinavians, for example. And yet, five other EFTA members – Austria, Denmark, Portugal, Finland, and Sweden– also ended up joining the European Union, as did most other European countries able to do so. The reasons for this can be found in what Richard Baldwin has termed a ‘domino effect’: as the organisation got bigger, and as economic integration within the bloc got deeper, the costs to would-be exporters of being outside increased as well. Thus, the 1986 Single European Act, which envisaged creating a truly single European market by 1992, and which was actively promoted by the UK, was a major factor behind Austrian, Swedish, and Finnish applications for membership. And since the early 1990s, the size of the single market has continued to expand, with enlargements to the south and east – again, something which Britain actively encouraged. As the domino analogy suggests, this was an expansion that fed on itself. The British economy is clearly not going to collapse as a result of Britain leaving the European Union. On the other hand, leaving the EU will impose severe costs on some institutions, sectors, and individuals. There will thus continue to be a potentially powerful constituency in favour of British EU membership. Nor have the diplomatic and geopolitical arguments in favour of British membership of the Union gone away either. Indeed, they have surely strengthened since the early 1960s, as Britain's relative standing in the world pecking order has continued to decline, and that of the emerging countries has continued to rise. Brexit undoubtedly does mean Brexit, whatever that means. But who would bet against a second Brentry within our children's lifetimes?
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