The Guardian view on EU diplomacy: May must detoxify Brexit

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/20/the-guardian-view-on-eu-diplomacy-may-must-detoxify-brexit

Version 2 of 3.

While Westminster is hopelessly tangled in debate over “meaningful votes” and “backstops” for deals that don’t even exist yet, it is salutary to consider that, viewed from Paris or Berlin, Brexit is not going badly. It isn’t going well either, but there is at least a process and a common EU position. That cannot be said of more urgent concerns for Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, such as migration and eurozone financial stability.

Modest progress was made on both fronts when the two leaders met this week in Meseberg, near Berlin. Mrs Merkel agreed, in principle, to a common budget for the single currency and to expand the remit of the European stability mechanism. On migration, there was agreement to strengthen the EU’s external border force and create an agency to harmonise asylum rules.

These are only statements of intent, but the symbolism matters since neither leader could afford to look isolated. Mr Macron has made European leadership the centrepiece of domestic authority, so he needs to show that his financial reform agenda is taken seriously.

Mrs Merkel’s coalition government is rickety. Her formidable command of German politics has been corroded by time and by the backlash against her generous response to the refugee crisis. She needs support from responsible, moderate EU leaders to signal that there is an available continent-wide response to migration concerns.

That looks doubly urgent now that Italy is run by a government with scant regard for moderation or responsibility. The tone is set by Matteo Salvini, the far-right interior minister with a knack for populist grandstanding who has eclipsed more senior figures in the coalition. His aggressive language about minorities, including a threat to register and expel Roma, is nakedly fascistic.

Italy is the third largest economy in the eurozone, yet its new government is on a maverick course – politically sinister and fiscally cavalier – that could sabotage the single currency. Couple that threat with a US president who has more in common with the xenophobic forces that undermine the EU than he does with Mrs Merkel or Mr Macron, and the logic of a renewed Franco-German alliance is compelling.

These are British problems too, inside or outside the EU. One reason Brexit talks are so difficult is the lack of problem-solving bandwidth in Brussels. Another is that Brexit looks, from the outside, rather like a manifestation of the vandalistic impulse embodied in the likes of Mr Trump and Mr Salvini. That association kills off any desire in Paris or Berlin to make concessions to Theresa May. In speeches and at summits, Mrs May says she is a friend to the EU, striving to uphold values that have been the basis of western security and prosperity for generations. But she is not doing enough to convince the key players – Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel. Their interests are not served by allowing Britain to slide into bitterness and isolation but they cannot currently see a strong strategic partnership on the other side of Brexit.

There is an EU summit next week, where British woes will be just another one of many challenges, and by no means the most urgent one. Europe’s moderate and liberal politicians are feeling besieged by dark destructive forces, within the EU and in America. Many see the UK as part of the problem. Mrs May will not make progress towards a mutually beneficial Brexit deal until she convinces her negotiating counterparts that she understands their anxieties and wants to be part of their solution.