© REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

Sovereignty is like oxygen―you don’t notice it until it’s gone. But then you really miss it.

For Europe, the United States’ withdrawal in 2018 from the Iran nuclear deal was that type of asphyxiating moment. That decision not only undid the signature European foreign policy achievement of the last decade, but also demonstrated that Europeans were virtually powerless to oppose a determined US president even as he trampled all over European preferences and European interests.

In retrospect, it appears that on a host of issues from defense to technology standards to trade, the EU has never been as sovereign as it thought. Even the EU’s vaunted economic power now appears as the result of a relative lack of geopolitical interference and competition. A time of fiercer geopolitical competition and an America more focused on its own narrow interests has exposed the EU’s lack of independence in new ways.

A re-invigorated European sovereignty could limit the damage and help protect European citizens. It would ensure that European leaders have the power to promote European values, to defend a multilateral system that helps protect European interests, and to allow Europeans to trade and invest with whomever they please. In other words, they would regain the capacity to decide their own fate, which is virtually the defining characteristic of any political community.

Transatlantic Dangers

The cost of their current lack of capacity is manifold. Europeans have different interests than other powers in a wide range of areas. Russia, a country that periodically invades its neighbors, presents some obvious challenges for European security. Less obviously, China is buying up European companies that are strategically important for European security and prosperity as well as acquiring political leverage over European member states through its massive investments. It has already used that leverage to pressure European countries to block critical language on its human rights abuses at the United Nations. And most disturbingly, the policies of the Trump administration mean that Europeans need to acknowledge that their interests and values increasingly diverge from the United States.

Of course, the transatlantic alliance remains a pillar of European security and prosperity—breaking it up is worse than unthinkable; it is unwise. But the Trump administration’s opposition to multilateral institutions, its callous disregard of allied concerns, and its willingness to leverage the US economic and financial system for geopolitical purposes all endanger European interests and values.

Europe seeks to secure its troubled periphery while the Trump administration is stoking tensions in the Middle East. The EU would like to defend rules-based international trade, while the Trump administration is actively undermining the WTO and its dispute resolution mechanism. For these and other reasons, the EU and its members states need the ability to negotiate on an equal footing, even with their closest partner. The transatlantic alliance can only survive if it delivers value for both sides of the Atlantic.

A Costly Void

New analysis by the European Council on Foreign Relations shows that European non-sovereignty could soon exact an even greater price, both political and monetary. €191 billion worth of EU trade with Russia every year and around €1 billion of EU trade with China every day would be threatened if a great power decided to impose secondary sanctions on it. Europe’s vulnerability in the cyber space could also prove expensive. Often state-directed incidents such as the WannaCry virus or the attack on the UK National Health Service could cost Europe hundreds of billions of euros.

The emerging industry of artificial intelligence has the potential to contribute more than €13 trillion to the global economy in 2030, according to a PWC study. But it remains unclear whether Europe will tap into this potential if it cannot protect its technologies and its economy from great power predations. Other countries such as the US, Russia, or China could also block the EU from using its own resources to stabilize an African country through the United Nations, send an OSCE monitoring mission to Eastern Europe or bail out a third country through the IMF. And, finally, imagine the security costs of non-sovereignty if Russia decided to treat Poland or Latvia in the way they have treated Ukraine.

The EU needs to look more holistically at the current threats to Europe’s capacity to act and embrace a new concept of strategic sovereignty. Strategic sovereignty would seek to marshal all of Europe’s policy tools and create an independent capacity for prospering in the geopolitical competition Europe has reluctantly entered.

Three Areas of Sovereignty

A few concrete examples help demonstrate the concept:

In the economic realm, Europe needs the ability to fight back against secondary sanctions through a stronger, more widely supported INSTEX, a Financial Sanctions Enforcement agency, and a beefed-up blocking regulation. The EU also needs to introduce geopolitical considerations into its competition policy instruments, establish Union-wide foreign investment screening, and expand regulation of state aid beyond just EU companies. For the longer term it needs to bolster the euro’s international role by fostering deep and integrated capital and banking markets, creating a eurozone safe asset, and extending swap lines to partner central banks.

On defense and security, Europe needs to increase its readiness and force posture in eastern Europe to underscore its commitment to the region’s security. It would complement NATO efforts, but also build Europe’s own capacities, in part by introducing a European level of ambition in NATO. The EU could also take over missions in Kosovo and Africa to improve burden-sharing within the alliance. Europe also needs an effective cyber-security institution with centralized functions.

In the political-diplomatic field, Europe should more effectively coordinate its sometimes disparate voices within multilateral institutions, including the UN Security Council, the Human Rights Council, and the IMF. But it also needs to hedge against blockage of international institutions. First of all, Europeans should agree emergency rules with other multilateralists on how to manage arbitration if the Appellate Body of the WTO is blocked. But they should also prepare their own institutions such as the European Investment Bank and the European Stability Mechanism to engage outside the EU and beyond their current mandates if necessary.

The overall goal is to promote a Europe that can prosper and maintain its independence in a world of geopolitical competition. This requires recognizing that even as Europeans continue to support a rules-based multilateral order and the transatlantic alliance, they also need to respond to the interlinked security and economic challenges that other powerful states present. The values and interests of Europe’s citizens depend upon it.

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© REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

In recent months, there has been much soul-searching in Berlin about Germany’s new political instability. In a post-American world, and with Europe deeply divided, the bloc’s anchor of stability appears to be failing the continent—at the very moment that French President Emmanuel Macron has put forth his vision for saving the European project.

Yet Germany’s crisis of government could, paradoxically, turn out to be an opportunity for bringing Europe together. A third grand coalition (or any other form of cooperation between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the Social Democrats) could end up not only unifying the country’s political currents, but in the process also help bringing together some of the competing factions in the European Union by forging a grand bargain between the fiscal discipline of: the Northern and Western Europeans (in the form of the CDU); the social conservatism of Eastern Europeans (in the form of the CSU); and solidarity and European federalism of Southern Europeans (via the SPD).

Of course, Berlin must try to generate a positive response to Macron’s proposals for reforming the EU, particularly on economic and monetary policy. Ever since Germany’s long-serving finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble left office to become President of the Bundestag, it has become conceivable to think of going beyond cosmetic changes in order to truly reform the euro group.

But the German government will find that the greatest potential for protecting and relaunching Europe, lies in foreign policy. The refugee crisis, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and US President Donald Trump’s attacks on the liberal world order have threatened the EU’s very foundation. Indeed, the CDU/CSU and the SPD could lay the foundations for an escape from the political gridlock that has held Europe back over these three central issues. Germany’s new government will be in an unprecedented position to reunite the EU during this process—and here, the German culture of consensus politics can play a key role in shaping the European dialogue. It is precisely the spirit of a new grand coalition (with a more balanced distribution of power between the two parties and a mandate for European reform) that could make such far-reaching compromise among disparate member states possible.

Fortress Europe or Open Doors?

The refugee crisis shook Germany to its core and left the country sharply polarized. Berlin must identify a broad solution that reconciles the protection of Germany’s borders and the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers with the introduction of legal migration routes that will help combat smuggling operations in Africa and the Middle East. An agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD on this question would have to include all of these aspects and therefore could also bring together groups in Europe that have been at odds: the front-line states of Greece and Italy, the Liberals of Sweden and Germany, and the skeptics of Eastern Europe. It would help reframe the debate away from a clash between proponents of both “open” and a “closed” Europe into an attempt to develop a common migration system that would honor the bloc’s humanitarian duties while preventing further migration crises.

Together they must show European citizens that the EU’s top priority is to protect its external borders. Thousands more experts at Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, could assist national authorities; this step should be complemented by visible security measures, including a more powerful European public prosecutor’s office and closer cooperation between national intelligence services.

However, securing the bloc’s external borders alone will not be enough. The key to a successful migration policy lies in the principle of “admission for readmission,” a concept enshrined in the 2016 EU-Turkey migration agreement. Even though that pact has not yet been fully implemented, Germany and the EU could reach similar agreements with Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Senegal, which are all key countries of origin and transit in current migration patterns. These agreements dis-incentivize illegal smuggling and uncontrolled migration by providing support for governments and the promise of legal channels. If implemented in conjunction with a modern immigration law, these agreements would help the EU regain control over migration and relieve the undue burden on transit countries.

They would also help alleviate Germany’s problems with deporting rejected asylum seekers back to their home country. But “admission for readmission” will only work if the EU commits to broad partnership agreements with governments in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel region on deepening development work, peacekeeping operations, and good governance.
If Germany truly wants to address the root causes of migration, the country will also have to champion a far larger European role in the Middle East, a region where American and European interests are drifting further apart and Russia has emerged as the power broker.

Europe must seek to stabilize as many regions in Syria as quickly as possible, by working to prioritize de-escalation, rather than pursuing regime change. And by promoting a new, decentralized political order in Syria, Germany could work with the international community to mediate between local rulers and aid reconstruction in some areas. Europe could also put alleviating sanctions against the Assad regime on the table to incentivize stabilization. In order to stabilize as many Syrian regions as possible, Germany and the EU must swiftly identify the levers they have to expand their influence in the conflict. Any solution would have to involve at least indirectly acknowledging Russia’s role in Syria, as well as more German and European stabilization and economic aid. None of this, however, can be given away for free. All of these measures need to contribute to the protection of Europe.

Russia and Turkey: Red Line Policy

Both Russia and Turkey have emerged as challengers to a liberal European order, but they are also both—in very different ways—key stakeholders for European security. Turkey is a member of NATO and EU candidate while Russia is neither, so there will need to be different policy solutions for each. But the fact that the EU has complex relations with both at this time of instability is a big vulnerability for European security. Rather than assuming that Turkey and Russia will be transformed by Europe, the EU needs a set of policies that allows the EU to work with them on areas of joint interest while defending limited, but firm, red lines.

The previous German government, by bringing along its own divided parties, managed to rally a deeply divided Europe behind sanctions on Russia, and, against the odds, managed to defend them for many years. It is clear that this helped to stabilize the conflict in Ukraine and deter further aggression. It now needs to build on this and find a similar way of reconciling the competing European factions on Turkey.

One of the great dangers of the Trump era is the emergence of a power vacuum in Europe that could allow Russia to test America’s security guarantees in Europe. Germany has taken on ever more responsibility in recent years, but its persistently inadequate military capabilities and prevailing pacifism among many Germans has kept the country hesitant towards military interventionism. In the Baltic states, Poland, and Eastern European member states, trust in the West is waning.

In order to rebuild trust, Germany needs to lead solidarity with the states on the front-line.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline project between Russia and Germany must be reconciled with the European Energy Union, an initiative to ensure sustainable energy security across the bloc. If Germany wants to issue a clear signal that it will protect European unity it could lead a joint military exercise modeled on “Reforger” (“Return of Forces to Germany”), a NATO maneuver from the Cold War era. Back then, NATO allies simulated the logistics of defending Germany against a Soviet invasion. Today, Germany’s partners fear for their territorial integrity and the German Bundeswehr has a tradition of “Landesverteidigung,” or territorial defense. Europe requires exactly those defensive abilities now. It would be a symbolic move, less about military logistics and more about demonstrating Germany’s leadership in Europe and its interest in reassuring its Eastern partners.

But there are also limits to the current policy regime of sanctions and strategic reassurance. It has not managed to end the violence in eastern Ukraine, nor has it ensured dialogue with Moscow on stabilizing Libya and Syria. The incoming federal government should also seek paths to step up engagement. One goal should be to explore a new de-escalation initiative in the embattled Ukrainian region of Donbass.

In September 2017, Russia proposed sending UN peacekeepers to Donbass to secure peace. It was likely a tactical maneuver, but for the first time in years there is an opportunity to stabilize the conflict. It is in Europe’s interest to freeze the conflict at this point, and only peacekeepers will effectively do so. The new German government should accept the Russian proposal but demand a far larger peacekeeping mission, one that covers all of eastern Ukraine, not merely the line of contact between pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian units. In addition, the EU should appoint a special envoy for Ukraine. This should be someone with the stature of Wolfgang Ischinger or Martti Ahtisaari who represents neither Brussels’ interests nor those of any specific European government. He or she could help build the confidence necessary to freeze the conflict. The US is already one step ahead on this issue, having appointed its own special envoy for Ukraine, Kurt Volker.

A Trade Revolution

The most significant challenge facing Europe today is Donald Trump’s attack on the liberal world order. Trump’s policies have upset this order on questions of trade, climate protection, and nuclear non-proliferation in particular.

Berlin alone cannot step into the role of leader of the free world. But the new government can unite with other powers to defend some key achievements of the liberal order—and to take some of the wind out of the sails of its critics. A key plank is to show that the EU will protect its citizens and states from the dark side of interdependence. The two most important ways to do this are to think about protecting social standards and physical security.

On the first, critics of the EU portray the bloc as the manifestation of globalization without protection for workers, citizens, and the environment. The buzzwords in France are le dumping social and le dumping fiscal.

One part of addressing this is to change the emphasis of EU trade policy: ​​instead of serving as the symbol of free trade, the EU should become the guarantor of fair trade—and a grand coalition in Berlin would have just the tools to steer this change. The ratification of free trade agreements—whether with Canada, Vietnam, the Mercosur bloc in South America or Mexico—depends on whether European citizens see them as a danger or a chance to mitigate the effects of globalization. It will therefore be especially important to maintain high European standards of environmental protection and labor legislation when dealing with external contractors, while shielding our own citizens from wage and social dumping within the common European market. Protection against foreign investment in sectors of strategic importance has also been part of the change in emphasis in EU trade policy. To this end, the European Commission presented proposals in September 2017 that aim to protect European companies from takeover by Chinese state-owned companies.

Europe has the potential to become, and should become, a regulatory superpower in the digital age. The economic and social progress of the last few decades has been critically shaped by companies like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook; due to their turnover and their influence, these companies have risen to the status of large, powerful countries. The EU is the only legal jurisdiction with the will and power to protect its values ​​and its societies from the negative effects of the digital age, and regulators around the globe follow its rulings on cases involving Apple or Facebook.

The other side of a Europe that protects is physical security. The most existential element of this is nuclear. Germany’s new government must also resolutely defend the nuclear agreement with Iran. It is one of the greatest achievements of European diplomacy, and if Washington threatens the deal, the worst-case scenario is a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. At the global level, the end of the JCPOA could spell the end of non-proliferation. If the US breaks the agreement, Brussels, together with Moscow and Beijing, must diplomatically isolate Washington and possibly compensate Iran for the economic damage it would suffer. Aid from the European Investment Bank could come into play. If the US sanctions European companies for doing business with Iran, the EU will have to respond with its own sanctions against U.S. businesses. This policy would require great tact and diplomacy to prevent a trade war with the Trump administration, but acquiescing to huge damage to European interests and the global non-proliferation regime is no option. The EU could also enact a Blocking Regulation and consider banning European companies from complying with US sanctions legislation.

As well as pushing for common measures on non-proliferation, terrorism and border controls, Germany’s next government also has the opportunity to make important progress in European defense policy that goes well beyond the timid beginnings of Permanent Structured Co-operation. In this area, too, the EU is divided, but reforms are possible. There is a big debate over what Germany does with its own defense spending. But the signal that Germany sends to other member states is just as important. One powerful way of incentivizing greater investment would be for defense expenditures to be excluded from the Maastricht criteria, to allow for additional investments. Protecting defense spending from those budgetary caps would accommodate the southern Europeans and give a big boost to the EU’s defense policy.

A new grand coalition of CDU, CSU, and SPD would not represent all currents of European politics. Martin Schulz is not Alexis Tsipras and Horst Seehofer is not Viktor Orbán. Yet the German spirit of compromise and consensus could ensure that Europe grows closer once again, and protects itself from danger more effectively. However, this will require the next government in Berlin to think much bigger than any German government in the post-war era.

The post Berlin’s European Agenda appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

© REUTERS/Eric Vidal

For me, Europe was always more than a political project to bring countries together – it was also one of the few things that made my family’s abnormal life and structure seem normal. In fact, my personal and professional life has been built on a rising tide of European integration and internationalism.

My mother was born in France in 1944 where her German Jewish mother was being hidden in a monastery. She grew up initially in Paris but returned to Germany in 1950 for her schooling. At the age of 16 she met my English father and at age 18, she got married and followed him to the United Kingdom. My father’s life was also influenced by European tragedies: His father was gassed in World War I, and he was sent away from home during World War II for 18 months, one of the most traumatic experiences of his life. He went on to become a Labor MP and voted for Britain to join the European Union in 1973.

It is impossible to bring three members of my family together without bringing three languages into the conversation.  But the European project has given my family’s life sense and structure. It is because of Europe that I am a member of the first generation in a century not to face war, extermination, or exile.

But in 2016 that tide of internationalism disappeared, forcing me to radically re-engage with my identity: who I am, what passport I hold, where I work, how we organize our family life, and more. I am not alone facing these changes; a whole generation is confronted with choices they never had to make before. A generation that grew up optimistically embracing change is worried the next shift will upend their lives.

But we also had to recognize that where we saw opportunity and security, many others experienced insecurity and vulnerability. And because of these experiences, the tide of internationalism is ebbing. The challenge is to take these lessons on board before it is too late – to try to rethink the European project so that it is more robust. Europe runs the risk of dying because it rejects change.

From Interdependence to Protection

The European Union is a political superstructure built on the foundations of national representative democracy. So it is no surprise that as many European states go through a profound process of political realignment, the European Union should see its foundations shaken as well.

It was possible to build the EU because of a permissive consensus among the mainstream parties. But today, the political space is fragmented. Parties of the center are being squeezed by new groups that have reframed the traditional left-right contest into one that pits the people against established elites. There are many reasons for this shift.

Economies and societies are becoming more diverse and fractured. Digital technologies are facilitating the creation of echo chambers rather than a single national culture. And growing inequality has split society into winners and losers, turning politics into a contest for a growing share of a shrinking pie. This is one of the features that has made battles over identity so brutal.

Amid this growing polarization, the European Union has emerged as the ultimate elite. It has exacerbated the trends that have driven the rise of populism. In some countries, the EU has taken decision-making out of the realm of political debate, making it appear as if there is no alternative, and this has fortified nationalists’ cries to “take back control.” Secondly, the EU has changed the horizons of people’s aspirations. Rather than comparing their situations to their own past or that of their parents, they increasingly compare themselves to Europe’s wealthiest and most successful – which explains why so many young people in Poland are unhappy despite a healthy economy.

But most troublingly, the very things that made Europe flourish are now rendering it increasingly unpopular. The EU was based on a mechanical idea that interdependence would reduce conflict. By linking European means of production together – first through the European coal and steel community, and later through the common market and the euro – the EU hoped to bind states together so closely that war between them would no longer be an option. War in Europe indeed became mostly unthinkable as wealth was generated.

Today that interdependence is feeding a pervasive sense of powerlessness and vulnerability. We have become so good at pulling down walls and barriers between people, markets, and capital, that we have become oblivious to the fears that this frictionless world can engender.

To save the EU, European leaders now need to change their focus. Rather than looking for new areas to bind people together, they need to devote all their energy to making interdependence feel safe. That means redistributing some of the economic benefits of free movement to communities bearing the brunt of the burden; strengthening control of external borders and cooperation against terrorism; ensuring greater flexibility for eurozone integration and migration; and returning to the idea that EU institutions’ highest calling is to defend Europe’s nation states, not to develop their own power.

In order to restore a sense of control to Europeans, the EU will need more flexibility. We need to allow particular constellations of member states to work together and establish different models for cooperation, gradually building new political centers around shared issues.

One of the biggest dangers for established parties is to frame the debate as one that pits the forces of openness against those who want a closed world. This only serves to cement the divisions and drive people to double down on their opposition. The solution is rather to invent a new politics of togetherness that honors the fears of the downtrodden and finds ways of making interdependence feel safe for them. This must go beyond the left’s comfort zone and focus on the economic dislocation of those left behind. There must be recognition of the cultural and security fears and an attempt to mitigate them as well. The new dividing lines for politics should be between managed and unmanaged togetherness, rather than open and closed. The central question is not a new challenge but an old one: Who benefits from connectivity?

People like me have been very good at arguing for the things that drive people together. But unless we can have a new politics of togetherness, the counterrevolution could blow away the whole construct.

From Universalism to Exceptionalism

The EU needs to go through an even larger rethink of its international role. Given its enlightenment roots – and the fact that Europeans have been at the center of global politics through industry and empire for centuries – it is not surprising that the European Union was a universalist project from its outset.

The EU has pioneered a revolution in political organization within its own borders. The key element was a highly-developed system of mutual interference in each other’s domestic affairs and security based on the rule of law, openness, and transparency. This new postmodern security system did not rely on a balance of power, nor did it emphasize sovereignty. It rejected the use of force as an instrument for settling conflicts and promoted increased mutual dependence between European states.

The postmodern European order was not interested in changing the borders of Europe, but rather the nature of borders themselves, to open them for capital, people, goods, and ideas. EU expansion has been its biggest success story. Europeans were aware of the distinctive nature of their order, but they were also convinced of its eventual universal nature.

Russia’s annexation of Crimea came as a rude awakening, making clear that the EU’s political model is unlikely to become universal or even spread to the immediate neighborhood. Moscow has outright rejected a unipolar European order centered around the EU and NATO. In fact, it came as a shock to many European policymakers that free countries making rational decisions would opt for a less perfect system than the EU.

Europe’s postmodern order evolved in a protective ecosystem, shielded from the more muscular, modern world where most people live. Today, Europeans need to spend more time thinking about how to defend their fragile system from internal implosion and external aggression rather than imagining how it will take over the rest of the world.

There will also need to be a much starker distinction between how Europeans deal with each other and how they can defend their interests with countries outside the EU club. Rather than looking at all states as potential members in need of reform, other countries will need to be seen as sovereign nations that the EU needs to engage.

For issues such as EU relations with Russia and Turkey (and these two countries’ relations with each other), member states need to agree on a policy that recognizes the interests of all, combining a tough defense of European interests with frameworks for collaborating with them. In addition to preventing an alliance between Moscow and Ankara, the EU should rethink its goals in its neighborhood.

Although the Balkan countries outside the EU will remain there for many years, they are in the European security space, and Europeans should be prepared to intervene militarily if outbreaks of violence recur. Moreover, EU leaders should pursue a broader definition of peace than the absence of war, including political and social stability and preventing radicalization in Bosnia and Kosovo.

For Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova, the goal should be to promote stable and predictable governments. For the next few years, the EU should view them as independent buffer states rather than as member states-in-waiting. It will be particularly important not to draw red lines that the EU is not willing to defend.

In the troubled Middle East, the EU cannot hope to be the central actor, and member states cannot protect their populations from instability if they are only spectators. Particularly in Syria and Libya, the EU needs to play a more concerted role with regional powers – as well as with the US and Russia – to advance political processes that could help reduce violence, provide humanitarian aid, and stem the flow of refugees.

Liberal Orders 1.0 and 2.0

The biggest challenge will be rethinking transatlantic relations and the nature of the international system. It can be argued that there was not one but actually two superimposed liberal orders in place over the last seventy years – a very light one that rose from the ashes of the World War II (liberal order 1.0) and a far more ambitious one that emerged after the Cold War (liberal order 2.0).

The original liberal order, born in 1945, was about protecting states from subjugation and invasion by imperial powers. This order only went as far as the borders of sovereign states. After 1989 liberal order 2.0 arose, going beyond those borders to look at the rights of individuals living within them.

In the wake of the Iraq War, Lehman Brothers, and the euro’s woes, the utopian project of the liberal order 2.0 is collapsing. In its place will not be chaos but a return to liberal order 1.0 – with bilateral trade deals and little international cooperation. Under this account, Trump doesn’t even represent a big break with past US administrations. Very few of them actually believed in constraining American sovereignty – they were just better at faking it.

But there is a darker reading of our situation: the liberal order 2.0 was halted by the rise of powers like Russia and China after 2008. In this scenario, we are now seeing a rollback even of the basic liberal order 1.0 – driven not by revisionist external powers but by a political counterrevolution within the West itself.  The worry is that we will see a new kind of globalization that combines the technologies of the future with the enmities of the past.

The development of technology could spur a series of connectivity wars as trade, the Internet, and even migration are weaponized. In this bleak world, multilateral institutions and regimes could become battlegrounds. International conflict will be spurred on by domestic politics that increasingly revolve around identity politics, distrust of institutions, and nationalism. National media will come to an end and we will return to a world of unverified gossip and competing versions of the truth.

In this world, what should Europe do? Should we become stakeholders for the liberal order 2.0 or should we try to manage as well as we can in a postliberal world? It is too early to say for sure, but in reality, the EU must preserve the dream of a liberal order 2.0 internally while accepting a return to liberal order 1.0 in the rest of the world.

Europe’s Great Hope

If these changes are to work, Germany has a crucial role to play. Much has been written about Germany and Angela Merkel being the last guardians of the free world. These are exaggerated claims. But Germany can do a lot to guarantee the liberal order 2.0 survives within Europe and secure the liberal order 1.0 globally.

The good news is that Germany only needs to pursue a more interest-based policy. The bad news is that this behavior does not come naturally to Germany.

For decades, Germany has successfully leveraged its two most important relationships, with the US and within the EU. Measured against its economic power, Germany spends an astonishingly small sum on defense and security, and that has only been possible because of the transatlantic relationship and NATO. The EU gave Germany institutions to hide behind – the largest and economically most powerful state on the European continent didn’t need to play the power politics game. Germany does not have national interests, Germans like to say; European interests are German interests.

This system has worked well for several decades, but now Germany must change its actions and mindset. An exceptional Germany was key to European universalism. A more normal Germany will be key to safeguarding European exceptionalism.

Germans have started to understand their crucial role and have begun to change accordingly. The country has vouched to spend eight percent more on defense this year and to reach the two percent NATO spending goal by 2024. It has become much more active in European foreign policy.

But a change in mindset is more crucial. Germany does not so much need to be the paymaster but it needs to be more flexible, to care less about rules and order. It needs to be willing to work inside but also outside the institutions. Over the last few years, Germany behaved as if it had a monopoly on morals. This didn’t serve its interests well (during the debt crisis, it ended up paying a lot more because of it).

This process is already well under way. In its approach to the euro crisis, Germany has pioneered institutional innovations. In the Ukraine crisis, Germany was willing to work within the Normandy format to deescalate the situation around Ukraine. And in its deal with Turkey on the refugee crisis, Berlin broke free from the constrictions of the enlargement process to craft a new framework for European relations with Turkey.

Still, Germany is increasingly isolated today, courtesy of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. A liberal order cannot exist in one country alone; Germany will need allies. At the moment, there is no one relationship that can carry Europe. The Franco-German relationship has been marginalized; Italy is embroiled in its financial problems and faces a possible victory of the populist Five Star Movement. Ad-hoc coalitions of the willing are increasingly crucial.

Embracing Change

The process of rethinking European integration will be difficult. It involves disrupting a world and frameworks that we had grown accustomed to over the years. In a way, Europe as an organization is experiencing what many of us know on a personal level.

When I was 23 years old, I regarded all change as good. I celebrated disruptions that would sweep away old-fashioned hierarchies and open up space for new people and new ideas. Because I was not attached to the status quo, I was able to grasp some opportunities that older people saw as threats.

Today, I find it far more challenging to embrace change. I have been around for the last two decades and many of my generation are in positions of power. In recent months, I have been trying to force myself to think like my 23-year-old self.

This made me realize that far too often we have been trying to defend the indefensible. The system we created for the EU internally has generated more conflict than cooperation. The system that we hoped to bring to the world has become enemy number one for Russia, Turkey, and the US under Trump. We need a new politics designed for this world – and Germany will have to play a crucial role in creating the necessary environment for this change.

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – May/June 2017 issue.

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© Artwork: Dominik Herrmann

The vast majority of the British people do not see European Union membership as one of the most important issues facing the country; every look at opinion polls over the last decades confirms that. By and large, the British are pragmatic about the EU; they are willing to support the pooling of sovereignty as they can see economic and other benefits. They are “skeptical” in the genuine sense of the word – but they do not stay awake at night worrying about the terms of British membership in the EU.

But there is a section of the British elite, particularly in the Conservative party and some sections of the media, in particular the press, that is completely upset with the European issue – and, frankly, obsessed with it. They go to bed worrying about how to get Britain out of Europe, and they wake up in the middle of the night worried about it; they think about it at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. To them, it is even more important than winning general elections. That virulent strain of europhobia has destabilized a number of Conservative governments over the years, and it has made it very difficult for Britain to live up to its potential.

A strong referendum vote in favor of staying in would neutralize that body of elite opinion for a while, which would allow the United Kingdom to play a much more constructive role in the union itself. I suspect that the British public will be happy to enjoy the benefits of that. What we saw after the last referendum in 1975 was a period of time where Britain, while not necessarily always the easiest partner, was actually driving a lot of the big projects. Shortly after the referendum Labor politician Roy Jenkins (he later became a Liberal Democrat) went to Brussels as the president of the European Commission. He was involved in creating the European Monetary System (EMS), the precursor to the euro. Lord Cockfield, a Conservative commissioner between 1984 and 1988, was one of the drivers of the single market project. After that, under Margaret Thatcher’s successor John Major, there followed a period of civil war within the Conservative party over “Europe”, especially the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992. During that period, Britain was not very constructive.

When Tony Blair and his Labor party won the 1997 election with a landslide, the UK played a really positive role in Europe again. Blair was at the forefront of a number of the big moves toward European integration: the enlargement of the EU, the European defense initiative of Saint-Malo, the Lisbon agenda. And while Blair’s stand on the Iraq War later split Europe and diminished Britain’s role, London was instrumental in issues like the start of negotiations about Iran’s nuclear program.

Since 2010, however, with the Conservative party back in power, the unresolved fight over Europe is back, which has led to Britain being weirdly absent from a number of big foreign policy issues. The most striking example is the Ukraine crisis – London is not part of the “Normandy format” of Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany, the framework in which negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin have been taking place. However, another strong vote to remain in the EU will likely see Britain returning to its normal position as a big country with lots of global interests – a country able to work with others to drive the EU in a positive and constructive direction. As the Blair years showed, the British public is quite happy to be part of things – if it thinks that Europe is something it is doing rather than something being done to it.

Fighting on Three Fronts

These days David Cameron is fighting on three interrelated fronts. One is the whole debate about the future of Europe and the negotiations between Britain and other member states about the British relationship with the EU, which concluded with the EU summit in Brussels on February 18-19, where Cameron pretty much got his “new deal”; the second front is the internecine warfare within the Conservative party; and the third front is about the British public.

Cameron’s theory of change is that in order to win with the British public, he cannot sell the status quo, because everyone can see that there are a lot of things wrong with the current EU. Therefore, he did not want the referendum to be a popularity contest – the EU wouldn’t win one in any member state at the moment, given her deep problems: the refugee crisis, the euro, and so on. It is not a union at ease with itself.
So the prime minister thought he needed to sell the British public a new, improved Europe – or British relationship with Europe – in order to sway people where the divisions are deepest, i.e. among the Conservative camp, and where he had hoped to convince key voices with impact within the Conservative party like London Mayor Boris Johnson (who is fancying his chances to become Cameron’s successor and came out for Brexit after the Brussels summit) or Home Secretary Theresa May who oversees immigration policy (and supports Cameron).

This sort of person is quite euroskeptic, and they are scared of their constituencies, now dominated by old and quite euroskeptic Conservative supporters. In the old days, they supported the death penalty, and if you said you didn’t support it, you were unlikely to be selected. In recent years, the question has been if you could overturn any single piece of legislation, which one would it be? And the only acceptable answer was the 1972 European Communities Act, in other words: to leave the EU. That is the political context for a lot of Conservative MPs.
Consequently, a very important part of the re-negotiation package was to do with satisfying those people, giving them the political arguments to move from a position of euroskepticism to supporting an “in” vote. And the re-negotiation is the narrow tightrope over which David Cameron and the majority of his cabinet ministers and lawmakers can walk from being euroskeptics to being in the in-camp in the referendum called for June 23, 2016.

That explains a lot of the detail of the re-negotiations, which are of no interest to most of the British public. For example, disavowing the phrase “ever closer union” is symbolically extremely important for these Conservative MPs, but it doesn’t have a huge impact on the public at large. The same applies to the “red card” for national parliaments to stop European legislation; this is of enormous importance to national members of parliaments, but probably of lesser importance to the general public, who don’t necessarily have such a high opinion of their lawmakers.

The ins and outs of Europe’s single currency are a really big issue and something which Chancellor George Osborne in particular is very upset about. But the one issue which is of real concern to the public is immigration, and it could swing the referendum quite easily. While opinion polls over the decades show that the elite conversation drives the salience of the EU for the general public, the immigration issue is very different. Concerns over immigration have been on a steady upward climb for the last fifteen years or so, and it closely tracks the real percentage of net immigration into the country. Elite debate here followed the lived experience of the public.

Abstract and Concrete

The “genius” of the euroskeptics has been to conflate these two issues, turning an abstract question on sovereignty into a concrete question on border control. Therefore, the real battleground in this referendum is not so much the question on the paper, but the question behind the question: Is this a referendum about Britain’s economic future and the dangers of leaving the single market and losing access to the single market, or is it a referendum about immigration and regaining control of our borders?

For years net immigration has risen; in 2014 the number was over 330,000. It is the biggest inflow of people since the World War II. The UK has absorbed 1.5 million Eastern Europeans. The “out” camp is basically saying this is a question about control and that Britain cannot regain control of its own affairs unless it leaves the EU. The “in” camp is going to say: the way to deal with these issues is not through control, but rather by being strong. Their slogan is “Britain Stronger in Europe”; they say the UK has a stronger economy, a stronger foreign policy, a stronger voice in the world when it remains in the EU. Basically it is strength versus control, while the “in” camp is also trying to show that the Brexit supporters don’t really have a plan.

On immigration, the “in” camp says to the public, “We hear what you are saying. We take it very seriously. We are going to try and do everything we can to mitigate the problems of immigration.” And at that juncture the renegotiations, benefits cuts for EU citizens living in the UK and such, come to bear – to show that the pro-EU politicians are aware of what is going on and that they have a plan to do something about it. But they are going to say that there are even bigger and more important issues at stake than immigration, because leaving the EU could destroy our economy and national security and may not even solve the immigration problems. One of the benefits of EU membership is that France helps us, that we can have our border checks in Calais rather than Kent. The refugees would be sitting in Britain rather than in France if we were not in the European Union.

Brexit supporters have not really worked out their argument yet. What they are trying to say – and this is where the rest of the EU can help – is that Britain is a uniquely important country. It has a massive trade deficit with the rest of the EU. It is six times the size of Norway, so it should be able to get a deal six times better than Norwayʼs. And that means it does not need to accept all of compromises which other countries have accepted in order to gain access to the single market. It should be able to negotiate its own terms, including all the benefits of single market access without having to pay into the EU budget or being subject to freedom of movement – obviously not the deals Switzerland and Norway got.

So one of the things that other member states need to do is saying: “You’ve got to be joking!” Either you get access to the single market, in which case you are going to have to assume some of the responsibilities, or you can have a free trade deal or a customs union with us; you can be like Turkey or Canada or some other country. In that case , fine – you do not have to accept free movement, but then you will not have access to the single market, especially not for services. And the other thing is to try to solve the whole question of migration and benefits, because that is the only thing which is really going to have a big impact on the British referendum.  •

* This article is based on a conversation the author had with Berlin Policy Journal’s Editor-in-Chief Sylke Tempel.

Read more in the Berlin Policy Journal App – March/April 2016 issue.

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