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[...] The process of negotiating a new relationship with Britain should be used to address the many other problems afflicting the union.
More specifically, it is now clear that Britain is not the only current member of the club that is unhappy with the high level of political integration involved in belonging to the EU. Just last week, the Visegrad Four — Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic — issued a demand for a looser bloc with some powers returned to nation states.
The negotiations around Brexit should be used as an opportunity to create a two-tier EU that meets these concerns. The first tier could press ahead with much closer political integration, pursuing the longstanding goal of “ever closer union” in Europe. The countries on the second tier would restrict themselves to participation in the single market and co-operation on foreign and security policy.
This two-tier approach could potentially meet the needs of both federalists and Eurosceptics. [...]
Creating two tiers of membership would allow the union as a whole to continue to fulfil its two most important missions: preservation of the single market and the projection of European interests on the world stage. A two-level structure could also solve the Brexit problem, since the UK could probably slot quite easily into the second tier rather than leave the bloc outright. In time, even non-EU members such as Switzerland, Norway, Turkey and Ukraine might join the second tier.
Of course, there is plenty of “devil” in the detail. Countries and legal powers would not be placed neatly and obviously into the first or second tier. Would France go with the federalists or the antifederalists? The answer might depend on the outcome of the French presidential election next year.
Could a country that has adopted the European single currency really opt for second-tier membership? That might be difficult given the degree of fiscal integration that the euro might ultimately demand.
The question of free movement of people would also be very sensitive. [...]
The difficulty is that while restrictions on free movement of people would be an important demand for the antifederalist countries in western Europe, the antifederalists in eastern Europe regard the maintenance of free movement as a vital national interest.
Yet there is still plenty of room for creative negotiation in dealing with this issue. One possibility would be to adopt the Dutch idea of the emergency brake, preserving the substance of free movement while providing reassurance that immigration will not be unlimited. Another idea would be to make a much clearer distinction between free movement of labour and free movement of people, allowing full labour mobility within the EU, but restricting migration rights to those who have a job. [...]
It would be far better for European leaders to acknowledge that some of Britain’s complaints about the EU are quite widely shared. Rather than trying to preserve the current structures at all costs, they should design a new two-tier union that could, potentially, keep everybody happy.
Full article on Financial Times (subscription required)