What If the British Vote No?

Charles Grant

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2005

Summary:  If ratified, the new EU constitution will change the way the union works. It cannot take effect unless approved by all 25 members, but in only one country -- the United Kingdom -- do polls show that a majority oppose the document. Still, a rejection there would throw Europe into a constitutional crisis. And it could ultimately harm transatlantic relations as well.

Charles Grant is Director of the Centre for European Reform in London and the author of What Happens If Britain Votes No? Ten Ways Out of a European Constitutional Crisis.

Yet any effort to exclude the British would only succeed if all 24 states backed it, and the United Kingdom's xenophobic ranting would have to be quite extreme to drive them all away. And if, in the wake of a negative referendum, London made an effort to consult with Europe on how to deal with the crisis, it would keep its friends. Many EU members want to build a stronger common foreign and security policy and to improve the union's record on economic reform, and they know that both tasks would be harder without London. Countries that share the United Kingdom's Atlanticism and market-oriented approach to economics would also think twice before ostracizing the British. Countries such as Portugal, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Nordic and Baltic states would not relish the prospects of an EU dominated by France and Germany. It is thus relatively unlikely that the United Kingdom would be pushed out of the union.

Under the fifth scenario, France, Germany, and their allies would accept that the constitutional treaty cannot be implemented without British ratification. Instead, they would set up a new organization, with its own institutions, for the EU states that want a real political union. This "hard core" of countries would harmonize their policies in areas such as taxes, legal procedures, and research and development. And they would try to establish a European criminal court and merge their armed forces and diplomatic services. This group would have its own budget, secretariat, council of ministers, and parliamentary assembly. It would coexist with the broader EU.

But it would be immensely difficult, legally and politically, not only to establish such a core but also to ensure that it operated smoothly alongside the EU. If the United Kingdom does vote no on the constitution, there would be strong support in France for a core Europe. Prominent French politicians, such as President Jacques Chirac and leading socialists Laurent Fabius and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, have already voiced their support. But the scheme would not be viable without equally strong German support. Although Chancellor Gerhard Schröder is thought to be sympathetic to the idea of a European hard core, many Germans remain less than enthusiastic. Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer announced a similar plan in 2000 and subsequently withdrew it, arguing that only a broad EU of continental scale could cope with current strategic challenges. The Christian Democratic opposition is divided. The German finance and defense ministries are opposed. So is most of the German business community, which fears that forging a closer relationship with France at the expense of the United Kingdom, the United States, and others could hurt the German economy.

Moreover, the core would be hugely divisive, upsetting those countries left on the outside. EU institutions would probably be hostile to the core group, seeing it as a rival center of authority. In some circumstances, the activities of the core could even breach European law. If core members favored one another in business matters, for example, other EU states could seek redress from the European Court of Justice.

The fact that Paris and Berlin would lead the core would in itself create problems. The pair revived their close alliance in 2002, after five years of frequently being at odds. Since then, they have often sparked resentment from other EU members, for example by breaking the rules on budget deficits in the Stability and Growth Pact and agreeing to preserve existing levels of spending in the Common Agricultural Policy. Some EU governments believe that France and Germany's cooperation serves to promote their own narrow interests rather than the wider European good.

In the end, a sixth scenario is the one most likely to unfold if the constitution fails the British referendum: the emergence of a "messy core." If attempts to exclude the United Kingdom or to establish a hard core come to nothing, the integrationist countries will seek to promote a more united Europe in a number of ways, including by trying to implement parts of the constitutional treaty. Although most parts, such as the new voting rules, cannot be implemented without ratification, some, such as the provision for the establishment of a European diplomatic service, can be applied without breaching the current treaties. The integrationist countries could also try to salvage other novel elements of the constitution by holding a mini-intergovernmental conference and trying to amend the existing treaties, adopting, for example, the new rules on majority voting. Such a scheme would, however, require every member state to sign and ratify the treaty amendments. The British government, in the wake of a referendum defeat, might find that difficult.

What the United Kingdom could not do is stop the integrationist countries from using current EU rules to establish vanguard groups in particular policy areas, for example, in corporate taxation or research and development. Nor could London prevent the creation of other vanguard groups outside the EU framework, in areas such as border guards, police cooperation, and criminal justice. There is a precedent: the "Schengen area" of passport-free travel was established by France, Germany, and the three Benelux countries in the 1980s as an entity separate from the EU, although in 1997 the union took it over. The integrationists would also likely build the euro group, currently an informal forum for the countries in the single currency, into a solid institution.

The consequence of all this would be further European integration, some of it involving the whole EU, but much of it within distinct but overlapping smaller groups. Eventually, the countries that belonged to all the groups would start to caucus, attempt to guide and direct the whole union, and probably establish their own secretariat. Europe would thus develop a messy core. Messy or not, however, the long-term effects would be similar to those of a hard core: the EU would be divided into two groups of countries, with France and Germany dominating the center group and the United Kingdom relegated to the outer circle.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT