Paying the price of mutual solidarity

Date: 04/04/1996

IT is a well-known fact that any gathering of 15 EU heads of state and government is likely to produce up to 15 different interpretations of the results of their discussions once summiteers emerge from their behind-closed-doors negotiating sessions to meet the press.

That is hardly surprising. Naturally, all of the participants are anxious to highlight those issues of particular concern to their country and to present the outcome in a way which will go down well with the audience back home.

Never has this been better illustrated than by the comments of EU leaders at the end of last Friday's Turin summit, called to launch the Intergovernmental Conference which will shape Europe's future into the 21st century, but overshadowed by British protests over the world-wide ban imposed on its beef exports by the Union on the eve of the meeting.

After EU leaders rallied behind the British prime minister, John Major showed his gratitude for the support they had given him by immediately exploiting this display of solidarity to serve his own purposes. Not only did he emphasise that the pledges of help given by his EU counterparts would have no influence on the UK's stand on the key issues facing the IGC, but he went still further by claiming that the support he had received proved that cooperation in Europe was possible without moves towards a more federal system.

While few, if any, of those present could have been politically naïve enough to believe that their sympathetic response to the crisis facing the UK beef industry would produce a sudden volte-face in the British attitude towards Europe, Major's attempt to exploit it in this fashion was a slap in the face to those who had rallied around him in his government's hour of need.

As Belgian Premier Jean-Luc Dehaene said afterwards, the support given to the UK should be seen by those “who do not believe in it” as a sign that Europe was “not entirely useless”. New Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson echoed this theme, saying: “The British have received support from a Europe which has not always had support from the British.”

No one should expect the UK Eurosceptics to show any gratitude. In the search for scapegoats for the crisis the government now finds itself in, they say the EU's export ban is partly to blame for the panic which has gripped consumers and sent beef sales plummeting.

But one might have expected better from their leader, a man who has often emphasised his desire to see the UK “at the heart of Europe”.

Major should not be surprised if the entire episode serves to harden the hearts of other EU governments when it comes to the negotiations on those proposals for the reform of the Union which his government finds most unpalatable.

Solidarity is, after all, a two-way street and Major may well come to rue his words when the IGC enters a decisive phase.