Britain's triumph in the EU referendums

[T_i_B]

Interesting story from the UK Economist. Make of this what you will.

http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4033035

IT IS perhaps tactless to point it out, but France's rejection of the European Union constitution is, in lots of ways, a triumph for Britain. For at least 50 years, the British have had two main goals in Europe. The first was to blunt the drive towards European political union; the second, to prevent Franco-German domination of European politics. With the death of the constitution both goals have been achieved at once. Michel Barnier, who was expected to lose his job as French foreign minister after the referendum, commented gloomily that “this is the first time in 50 years that the French and Germans have diverged in Europe on a fundamental issue. Without this constitution, Europe is broken down politically.” When Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, claimed to be saddened by the French vote, you could almost hear his officials popping champagne corks behind him.

Success is all the sweeter because the European issue has bedevilled Britain for so long. The difficulty was that the two goals, avoiding entanglement in a political union and preventing a Franco-German partnership from dominating Europe, have so often conflicted. Britain at first stayed out of the European Economic Community, because it seemed an unacceptable infringement of national sovereignty. But as the economy suffered and British influence waned, a new strategy was adopted: join the club, but try to focus it on economics and block any more moves towards European federation. It was a tricky game to play. Many British Eurosceptics, including, latterly, Margaret Thatcher, feared that, in the name of preserving British influence, the country was being gradually drawn into a political union.

Suddenly all such clouds have lifted. Britain is still in the European club, but political union is dead. Better still, French fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. Having spent years being reviled as “bad Europeans”, the British are taking quiet satisfaction in all the odium now being heaped on France.

But if luck and accident played a part in the British triumph, so did one long-term strategy. Lady Thatcher and Mr Blair may have adopted different tones towards the EU, but they shared a central goal: enlargement of the club. The British argued, doubtless sincerely, that letting former members of the Soviet block into the EU was a moral imperative. But this also happened to serve British goals very well. The central Europeans have only just recovered their sovereignty and are instinctively wary of moves towards European federation. Bitter experience of socialism also makes them sympathetic to the economic liberalism traditionally championed by Britain. And the mere fact of expanding the EU to 25 countries in 2004 has made it far harder for any two countries to dominate. The days when Franco-German initiatives were nodded through by everybody else are over. To rub salt into the wound, English is increasingly the working language of the EU, a cause of real anguish to France.