Bagehot. The good European

Is Tony Blair's European policy in tatters? Not really

IN OCTOBER 1997, soon after Labour's landslide election victory, Britain's most prominent pro-European, Roy Jenkins, advised the young prime minister that he had a chance to "seize the moment" and to shape events rather than be shaped by them. The choice for Tony Blair, as Lord Jenkins saw it, was between leading in Europe, which would require joining the nascent euro, and keeping the Rupert Murdoch-owned press on his side.

Typically, Mr Blair declined to see things so starkly. Although he had described securing membership of the single currency as one of the most important decisions facing the country, he calculated that a lot more needed to be done to prepare the ground politically and economically before the promised referendum could be won. And what was the point of making an enemy out of Mr Murdoch when he had worked so hard to woo him?

As Lord Jenkins had predicted, the moment passed. For ardent Europhiles, who had believed that Mr Blair, in his own words, would finally end Britain's historic ambivalence towards Europe, it was never glad confident morning again. As far as the Eurosceptics were concerned, nothing Mr Blair did or didn't do would convince them that he wasn't a fanatical integrationist straining at the leash to do the bidding of "Brussels".

As Mr Blair struggles to find a resolution to the European Union's budget crisis - when The Economist went to press, the prospects were in the balance - he knows that whatever the outcome, he can expect blame rather than praise. By putting even a small part of the British rebate on the table without having previously secured root-and-branch reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP), he already stands accused by the predominantly anti-European British press of having betrayed Margaret Thatcher's great victory more than 20 years ago in Fontainebleau.

If, on the other hand, despite Mr Blair's willingness to offer something for very little in return, there is no deal, it will be he, not the real villain of the piece, Jacques Chirac, who will get it in the neck from the other 24 member countries. The one thing that almost everyone is agreed on is that Britain's six months presidency of the council has been dismal - a fitting culmination to Mr Blair's European policy of the past eight and a half years.

One does not have to be an apologist for Mr Blair to see this as an excessively harsh verdict. A large part of the problem with Tony Blair in Europe, as it is at home, is that he raises the bar of expectation too high. Just as he led euro-enthusiasts to believe he would do something that he must have known neither the Treasury nor the British public would let him, so his rousing speech to the European Parliament in June was almost bound to result in anti-climax and disappointment.

As a passionate exposition of how a more open and economically dynamic Europe would better serve the interests of its citizens, it could not be faulted. But the idea that Britain, of all countries, in a six-month period interrupted by summer holidays, could persuade the French effectively to abandon the CAP deal (that runs until 2013) stitched up with the Germans three years ago was wildly over-optimistic.

The notion that Mr Blair's European policy has been a flop is equally daft. With a clear sense of direction, diligence and charm (good luck also played a part when the European constitution was derailed), he has transformed Britain's position in Europe. The much-derided British presidency succeeded in salvaging the EU's faltering commitment to beginning formal entry negotiations with Turkey - something of great strategic importance that possibly no other country could or would have done.

Above all, the long-term British strategy of enlarging the Union at the expense of further integration has been a triumph for patience and persistence. While the budget wrangling has temporarily strained relations with the new eastern European members, they know that no major country has done more to bring them into the Union or extend to them the full rights of membership than Blair's Britain. The idea of France and Germany as the motor of an ever-deepening union has been dealt a lasting blow. France's rejection of the European constitution was a cry of pain against the Europe that Mr Blair has helped to construct.

Bolstered by its own economic self-confidence, Britain has also had some limited success in gaining support for a more liberal, more competitive union. It's true that progress on the ground since the Lisbon summit in 2000 is hard to discern, but the new commission, headed by Jose Manuel Barroso, is far more in tune with the British agenda than any of its predecessors. It is a reflection of the new balance of power in the EU.

Still ambivalent after all these years

Compared with the catastrophic state of affairs that developed under the last Conservative government, symbolised by John Major's pathetic "empty chair" response to the ban on BSE-infected British beef exports, Labour ministers work effectively with their European counterparts and get results. Any moment now, Charles Clarke, the home secretary, is expected to announce a Europe-wide agreement to retain mobile phone data that may help to trap terrorists.

Even Mr Blair's "failures" no longer look so bad. As the gilt wears off the euro, Britain's reluctance to sign up seems slightly less offensively idiosyncratic to the currency's boosters. Meanwhile the diplomatic damage done by the Iraq war has been partially healed by the decline in the fortunes of Mr Chirac and Gerhard Schroder and the need to rebuild transatlantic bridges.

Mr Blair may have been no more successful in ending Britain's ambivalence to Europe than in teaching the Labour Party to love Peter Mandelson. Some things are impossible. But what he has done is to advance Britain's interests by engaging with Europe calmly and constructively. When the brickbats start flying this weekend, as they will, that's worth remembering.

Commentary feature. Is Tony Blair's European policy in tatters? Not really.