Mark Briggs :
The May 7 UK general election will go a long way towards deciding whether Britain will stay in the European Union, or choose to leave, after forty years of uneasy relations. A surge in Eurosceptism has firmly pushed the European Union up the political agenda in Britain.
The ruling Conservatives have promised an in/out referendum on EU membership before the end of 2017 if they win the election, placing Europe’s future at the centre of the debate.
Prime Minister David Cameron has said he would campaign for the UK to stay, but only if the EU was able to reform, saying “Britain’s national interest is best served in a flexible, adaptable and open European Union.”
However, five years after the formation of the UK’s first coalition government since World War II, the polls are pointing to another hung parliament.
Former minority parties such as the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) and the pro-EU Green Party now see a realistic chance of entering government via a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour.
A year after European elections in Britain were won by the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and two years from a potential in/out referendum, “Europe” is no longer a topic the parties can afford to keep quiet about.
The Tories’ approach to the EU is “renegotiation and referendum”. They want to reform the UK relationship with the EU and then put that reformed relationship to a referendum by the end of 2017.
Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party are committed to Britain’s place in Europe, but are equally committed to reform of the EU. The party said it wants to make the “hard-headed, patriotic case both for Britain in Europe and for change in Europe”.
Labour is also considering an EU referendum, but said it would only do so if there was a substantial further shift of powers from London to Brussels.
With their leader, Nick Clegg, a former MEP, the Liberal Democrats are the most prominently pro-European party in the UK.
Clegg debated UKIP leader Nigel Farage ahead of the European elections in 2014 and was widely regarded to have lost. The party is clear they want the UK to remain in the EU, but they face a tough challenge to retain their position as the UK’s third largest party after five years in coalition.
The UK Independence Party’s (UKIP) position is the clearest on the issue. They want the UK to leave the European Union as a first step towards regaining Britain’s ‘lost’ national sovereignty.
The Greens have a strong presence in the European Parliament and are currently experiencing a surge in membership across the UK.
The environmentalists are strongly in favour of the EU and the role it plays in environmental legislation, work place protections and freedom of movement, but also seek reform, and back a referendum on membership.
In the upcoming election campaign, the debate over the EU will be dominated by the question of an in/out referendum and the issue of immigration.
The UK entered the EEC in 1973 after a referendum returned a result of 67% in favour. But it did not hold a referendum on any of the subsequent major EU treaty modifications, whether in Maastricht (1992), Amsterdam (1999) or Lisbon (2009).
The 2011 European Union Act was designed to remedy this. Now, a referendum will have to be held on any future EU treaty change transferring additional powers from London to Brussels.
In January 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron promised to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership by 2017 if the Conservatives win the next election. The vote will take place after renegotiation of the terms of membership and a “new settlement” on membership for the UK is reached.
Cameron was widely believed to have offered the vote to appease the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party and to fend off the rise of the UK Independence Party. Neither appears to have been successful, and the announcement ignited debate about the reforms the UK should pursue in Europe.
The issue of a referendum will be a constant presence during the election campaign, with the Tories seeing it as a major vote winner for their party.
Sunder Katwala, of British Future, a non-partisan think tank, says the EU has a long history of dividing the Conservatives. He says the party “is now united around offering an in/out referendum, though significant sections of it will find themselves in different camps once that question is put”.
As for the Labour Party, its position of not holding a referendum unless a significant transfer of powers takes place from London to Brussels “has won the party friends in the business community who fear the uncertainty a referendum would bring”, Katwala said. “UKIP’s call for a referendum has increasingly centred on the issue of migration,” says Katwala, which is “the issue that matters most to UKIP voters”.
The Tories have said they will hold a referendum by 2017 at the latest if returned to government. There have been recent calls to bring this date forward. Katwala says such a move would limit both sides’ ability to hone a message that reaches out beyond their base support. “The EU referendum will be decided by voters who don’t think or care too much about Europe.”
“Whether Britain remains in the European Union could well be the biggest issue of the next Parliament. But it will have a lower profile in this election, where the parties will argue mainly over the merits of holding a referendum.”
Last May, the pledge rang out across Europe, “This time is different”. A year on, the question remains – was it? Turnout was an all time low of 43%. In the UK, it was even lower: 34%.
This has raised questions over the democratic deficit of the EU, and the extent to which the EU makes rules in areas in which it has little accountability.
Debates surrounding a federalist-like integration of the eurozone in the wake of the sovereign debt crisis has raised fears in Britain that so-called “euro-in” countries will club together to push their own agenda, leaving the “euro-outs”, such as Britain and Denmark, on the sidelines. Other institutional debates, such as the removal of the European Parliament’s Strasbourg seat in favour of a single one in Brussels, are also popular in the UK and stir endless media controversy.
But with major EU institutional changes still fresh from the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, there is little appetite for another round of institutional negotiations.
A greater role for national parliaments may prove popular around the EU, according to Agata Gostynska, a Research Fellow in EU Institutions at the Centre for European Reform (CER), a pro-European think tank. But gaining support in Brussels may be more difficult, she says.
“The Commission will be hesitant to support the idea of granting parliaments veto rights on legislative proposals,” she said referring to British calls for a ‘red-card’ system allowing EU countries to veto proposed legislation. “The European Parliament, which still treats [national] parliaments as its rivals rather than allies, will oppose it too,” she predicts.
While the principle might be of interest to the most eurosceptic member states, formal agreement on a red-card principle would in any case require a treaty change. Any such move would be highly unpopular everywhere except the UK, because the unanimity rule would almost certainly bring EU institutions to a standstill.
Instead of such blunt instruments, Gostynska argues there is scope for more parliamentary scrutiny of the government’s actions at EU level, within the existing treaties.
“British MPs often complain the government does not share all the relevant documents with them. Some MPs would also like to have more regular parliamentary debates ahead of the European Council [of EU heads of states]. The reform of the British parliamentary scrutiny practice could boost parliamentarians’ interest in EU affairs and facilitate their greater involvement in the EU decision making process.”
Eurosceptics are also in for bitter disillusionment on the single seat campaign for the European Parliament, where their interests match those of EU federalists. Despite widespread support in the UK, Gostynska says agreements on the issue remains highly unlikely.
Indeed, when it comes to treaty change, unanimity is required and Paris will not doubt wield its veto. “France is vitally interested in keeping Strasbourg as one of the Parliament’s seats and will oppose any attempts to move plenary sessions to Brussels,” she says.
In addition, the Conservatives are likely to campaign for limiting the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, which many in the party see as encroaching on British sovereignty. Home Secretary Theresa May said Britain should consider leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, because it interferes with the government’s ability to fight crime and control immigration.
“Despite not being an EU institution, it is linked to the wider Europe question by much of the electorate,” says Pawel Swidlicki a Policy Analyst at Open Europe, a euro-critical think tank.
The EU has long been considered in the UK as an overbearing influence, with many arguing that the benefits of the EU single market for goods and services are drowned out by excessive red tape and regulation (even if the British press is keen on making them up).
The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the EU had become “out of touch” with its citizens, with “pointless rules and regulations that stifle growth, not unleash it”.
He said Britain should use the eurozone sovereign debt crisis as an opportunity to re-shape the Union as a network rather than a bloc. Britain, he continued, should seize the opportunity “for powers to ebb back instead of flow away” from national governments.
The UK would seek EU opt-outs on directives affecting labour rights and financial services regulation if eurozone countries adopt fundamental treaty changes, Cameron told the UK Parliament in 2011.
Cameron believes he can win backing from Germany, which also wants economic and institutional reforms, although for different reasons. During the eurozone crisis, Berlin has repeatedly called for changes in EU treaties, needed to strengthen the economic governance inside the eurozone.
Following the eurozone crisis, a key priority of the new Junker Commission is to boost the economic performance of the EU. First Vice-President, Frans Timmermans, has been given the task of reducing red tape, including a review of proposals by the previous Commission yet to be enacted, a move widely seen as a victory for Cameron’s campaign to make the EU more efficient.
(To be continued)
