Europe: finally, things get interesting

Warwithfrance Until now, you could have been forgiven for viewing the European political machine simply as a staggeringly inefficient means of pissing away large sums of taxpayers’ money. And, no matter what your beliefs about European integration (count me pro, in instinct if nothing else) it has been getting harder and harder to argue that the European project does anything other than stink to high heaven.

Granted, things aren’t quite as bad as depicted in this billboard (right) at one Evening Standard kisok on Friday night - whoever was responsible for that, and the front page, has clearly not seen the second episode of The Day Today, where Chris Morris goads diplomats into declaring war live on TV (Donald Bethl’hem: "Tension here is very high, Chris - the stretched twig of peace is at melting
point. People here are literally bursting with war").

But, seriously, it was my former boss, Guardian assistant editor Victor Keegan, who awoke me to the iniquities of agricultural subsidies, which simultaneously manage to make us and the developing world poorer while, one presumes, keeping farmers in vin rouge. Vic keeps a fine weblog, called KickAAS, which continues to be a useful source of information on the subject, and he highlighted recently the absurdities of the attempts by France and Germany to get Britain to pay more into Europe.

"You couldn’t make it up. Here is the European Union, mired in economic stagnation, desperately in need of a greater share of the emerging new technologies and what is its overriding priority now? It is to get Britain to pay a bigger contribution in subsidies to keep antiquated European farming - and disproportionately, that means French farmers - from adjusting to the imperatives of the 21st century. [...] There are two classes of people that like gravy trains: those already on and those waiting to board."

Powerful stuff. Combine it with this anticipated message from Tony Blair in the run-up to G8, and you begin to see a strong argument that can help remove the stigma that seems to hang over Euroscepticism in progressive circles. There, to be wary of the current Europe is to be branded Eurosceptic, which is to jump under the covers with some very odd political bedfellows indeed (although I’ve been doing that all week). Proper arguments, rather than little Englander flag-waving, makes the position less an ideological standpoint, more one of good economics, fiscal husbandry and concern for the developing world.

That the current European ructions are providing both more information for us all to base an informed position on the issue is no bad thing, and also makes it much more acceptable to question what the bloody hell they’re all up to - apart from the obvious - over there in Brussels. A couple of samples from today’s papers: first, Andrew Rawnsley in today’s Observer (a paper that’s slap-bang behind killing subsidies) on the opportunity confronting Tony Blair when he assumes the EU presidency next month.

There are factors now working to Mr Blair’s advantage in proselytising his case for a reformed Europe. There is a much bigger audience for asking some fundamental questions. Why does the EU spend seven times as much subsidising farmers as it does on science, technology, skills and education put together? Is that an intelligent response to competition in world markets with the United States and the 21st-century challenge posed by China and India? That argument is beginning to resonate widely.

It would be naive to expect rapid, radical reform of the Common Agricultural Policy. You will wait for the Eurocows to come home. I certainly can’t see it happening in the next six months. But reform is back on the table, not least thanks to Jacques Chirac’s attempt to use the British rebate as a diversionary tactic to deflect the humiliation of his own referendum defeat.

Meanwhile, at the Sunday Times (but in the Guardian from later this year - hurrah!) Simon Jenkins works the same riff, with even greater punch:

"The streets of Brussels are like late Hapsburg Vienna. They throng with officials, commissioners, court mercenaries and pseudo-parliamentarians. The empire is their livelihood and they will fight to preserve it. Last week I heard spokesmen plead for the common agricultural policy as “vital to the security of Europe”, for trade protection as “vital to Europe’s jobs” and for a foreign minister as vital to Europe’s “voice”.

[...]

"So far, Blair’s response to the EU crisis has been exemplary. He is at last calling the spade a spade, not a 180-degree feedback shovelling experience. Three years ago he meekly signed the inexcusable 2013 CAP deal, knowing it would precipitate this year’s budget crisis. Now apparently it “makes no sense” to spend 40% of the EU budget subsidising just 4% of its people."

I urge you to read the whole thing and, as Jenkins says, brace yourself:

"Tempests rage. Winds howl. Peasants huddle terrified in hovels while ashen-faced statesmen race hither and thither before the storm clouds of history. The Horsemen of the Apocalypse are at full gallop. I do declare, Europe is interesting."