Negotiating with the EU: A practical guide

Following Theresa May’s abortive efforts to persuade the EU to change its mind with regard to offering some form of Brexit concessions, and as the Italian government’s spat with the European Commission continues, it seems like an opportune moment to reflect on how to negotiate with the EU. Based on a recent article by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which looked at the lessons Switzerland could take away from its EU negotiations, I set out a framework for the likes of Poland and Hungary, who might soon find themselves on the wrong end of the Commission’s wrath, based on the past experiences of Greece, Italy and the UK. 

1) Know what you are trying to achieve 

The British clearly failed on this score. The referendum result merely expressed a wish to leave the EU, not how it should be implemented. Nine months after the referendum, the UK invoked the two year Article 50 procedure without any clear objective in mind other than to leave the EU. Without having done any preparatory work beforehand the British started their negotiations from a position of weakness and things never got any better. As a consequence, the British have spent more time arguing amongst themselves than engaging constructively with the EU. Last week, when Theresa May went back to Brussels to plead for more concessions in order to raise the chances of the Withdrawal Agreement passing through parliament, she was repeatedly asked to specify what she wanted. And she could not do so.

2) Everyone has their own domestic policies 

Many of those members who get into difficulties with the EU often find that they ignore the domestic sensibilities of other members. When faced with the Troika’s proposals to allocate more funds to Greece in the summer of 2015, the Greek government called a referendum in which the Troika’s terms were rejected by a majority of 61% to 39%. But EU member governments were having none of it and offered liquidity on the same terms, which the Greek government was subsequently humiliatingly forced to accept. The tactic employed in parts of the Greek press of portraying Angela Merkel in terms of a previous, less enlightened, German Chancellor clearly did not play well in Germany and hardened the resolve of the EU. The UK finds itself with similar difficulties: It cannot continue to ask for exemptions from the EU rules that everyone else has to abide by. At some point, someone is going to cry foul. 

3) Don’t paint your red lines too deeply 

One reason why Theresa May finds herself in her current position is that she set red lines on issues such as immigration, ECJ involvement and leaving the customs union without accounting for the consequences of her actions. As a result when faced with the draft Withdrawal Agreement, both Leavers and Remainers can rightly argue that she has not reached an agreement that anyone can sign up to because the PM has been forced to compromise so much. The Italians find themselves in a similar position today. Having refused to countenance any cuts to outlays, the European Commission instituted excessive deficit proceedings in an action that was totally avoidable. If nothing else, the EU is built on compromises and it is normally possible to find some form of accommodation – so long as you don’t paint yourself in a corner to start with. 

4) Don’t mess with the family 

It was (rightly) argued long before the Brexit referendum that the EU had no interest in giving a generous deal to the UK. Its primary interest was to defend the interests of its members and ensure that no country could leave on favourable terms in case others decided that they also wanted to depart. The EU27 have thus closed ranks and spoken with one voice regarding the terms on which the UK could leave. Like any family, the EU is quite capable of quarrels – even feuds – but when the chips are down it usually pulls together. Ironically, Britain has never really felt like one of the family. It was twice refused membership in the 1960s thanks to President de Gaulle’s view that the UK was a Trojan horse for US interests and would undermine the vision that many members shared for the EU. De Gaulle may not have been wholly right but he was not totally wrong either and sometimes the UK has felt more like a lodger than a full family member. 

5) Might is right 

It is unfortunately one of the rules of life that larger and more powerful nations dictate terms to the smaller ones.  This is not new: Larger tribes have been pushing the smaller ones around since ancient times, but at least the EU is underpinned by a series of rules that afford some rights to the smaller members. However, the Greeks learned to their cost in 2015 that it was impossible for a nation of 11 million people to go against an economic superpower of 314 million, particularly when their case is relatively weak. Greece reckoned that ultimately the EU would cave in and offer more favourable terms but the Germans, particularly Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, were adamant that the only choice Greece faced was take the terms or leave. They took the terms! The Irish can tell a similar story about how they were forced to accept the terms of the EU bailout, which many claim even now was primarily designed to support the EU banking system rather than Ireland. So when the UK goes into the conference chamber as one government facing 27 others, with Germany and France arraigned on the other side of the table, you don’t have a strong negotiating position.

The UK, like Greece before it, has failed to understand the basis of its negotiating position vis-à-vis the EU which goes a long way towards explaining its current predicament. However, many of these pitfalls were avoidable and it speaks volumes that the British tried to placate domestic opinion rather than that of its EU negotiating partners. I would like to think that Polish and Hungarian officials have taken these lessons on board as they brace for heightened tensions with Brussels. But somehow I have my doubts.

Helmut Kohl's legacy

A memorial service was held in Strasbourg yesterday for former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died on 16 June. Whilst his death briefly made headlines in the British press, coverage of what was in effect a European state funeral barely made a splash on this side of the channel. That says a lot about the way the British media thinks of European issues. Kohl was, after all, praised across the continent for being the lead architect in the construction of the EU – an institution which the British electorate rejected 12 short months ago.

Politically, Kohl was a unifier: In addition to his role on the European stage, he will forever be remembered as the Chancellor who reunited Germany. But as the German media has highlighted, one of the great ironies is that he never managed to unify his family: Even in death, he remained estranged from his two sons. Nor, despite the eulogies, did he share Angela Merkel’s vision, particularly with regard to the handling of the euro crisis. Kohl was a historian with no interest in economics. His was the politics of the grand vision, regardless of the cost. Very few politicians of the post-war era would have attempted a project as ambitious as German reunification. But no reputable economist agreed with the decision to convert the Ostmark to the Deutschmark at a rate of 1:1 which gave East Germans a short-lived income boost but which later wiped out the eastern economy.

Many German economists also believe that his push to introduce the euro was badly handled. The decision to introduce a pan-European currency without the appropriate leadership structure in the EU, and without a body to direct common political and economic policies for the euro zone, means that the single currency effectively remains little more than a glorified fixed income mechanism. It was created on the basis of the competitive situation which prevailed in the 1990s, and the pain associated with maintaining competitiveness was always going to require significant domestic adjustment: Even the European Commission was clear about this in the mid-1990s.  As Die Zeit put it, “a currency union was created that only worked when the sun shone.  And when a storm, in the form of a financial crisis, came along, Mr. Kohl’s peace project became the nucleus of the largest European crisis since the war.”

Undoubtedly, Kohl’s solution to the Greek debt crisis would have been to dip deeper into German pockets to find a financial solution. It might even have worked – for a while. But it does not detract from the fact that there are significant faults in the construction of monetary union which need to be fixed. Although Kohl was not honest with his own electorate about the costs of monetary union – living in Germany at the time, I was acutely aware of that – we cannot pin all the blame for the euro zone’s ills on his shoulders. Politicians in other countries signed up willingly to the euro without realising that their own economies would have to bear a far greater share of the adjustment burden than Germany.

The election of Emmanuel Macron as French President has been hailed across the continent as a chance to rebuild the Franco-German axis that drove the European project forward during the 1980s and 1990s. Macron has proposed a common fiscal policy, a joint finance minister and the completion of banking union, and surprisingly he has been given a sympathetic hearing in Berlin. But we cannot so easily turn back the clock to the halcyon days of Kohl and Mitterrand. The world has changed, with the rise of Asia having permanently altered the global economic landscape. Nor is it so certain that the people of Europe today share the vision for their continent which Kohl espoused. His was a vision rooted in the past, designed to ensure that the horrors of the first half of the twentieth century could not be repeated. That was, and is, a laudable goal. But the survey evidence suggests that European electorates remain sceptical of the need for further integration.

Europe in early 1995, after Kohl’s fourth election victory, felt like a good place to be. The EU was a smaller, more manageable institution with just 15 members. It was moving towards convergence at a pace which felt comfortable and although progress towards a single currency was ongoing, there were widespread doubts that it would be operational by 1999. It felt more like a warm and fuzzy aspiration which made the federalists feel good yet was far enough away not to worry the sceptics too much. In my view, that was Kohl’s real achievement: He led the horse to water. It is unfortunate that the purity of the water did not match up to expectations.

Compromise on so many levels

In her January speech which set out what the UK seeks for its post-Brexit future, Theresa May stated that the UK does not seek “partial membership of the European Union, associate membership of the European Union, or anything that leaves us half-in, half-out. We do not seek to adopt a model already enjoyed by other countries. We do not seek to hold on to bits of membership as we leave.” But if politics is about anything it is the about the art of compromise, and over the past week, signs have emerged that the government is indeed prepared to “hold onto bits of membership” in order to avoid the cliff-edge that the prime minister has warned about.

The Financial Times reported in midweek that the UK may accept ”the possible extension of free movement, as the European Parliament agreed to open the way to a potential association agreement.” This sounds very much like the sort of policy guaranteed to get hard-Brexiteers foaming at the mouth but it is a rational and sensible response to something that could otherwise become a major problem. The UK is an open economy which has taken international specialisation to extremes. To simplify hugely, the UK has become a service-based economy and sources large chunks of its manufactured goods offshore. Precisely because the services sector is highly labour intensive, the UK needs to import large quantities of labour in order to meet demand. This model means that the UK is highly integrated into the global economy meaning that it makes little sense to suddenly throw up obstacles to the supply of labour which the UK needs to continue generating output.

The UK has also suggested that it may be prepared to take the rulings of the European Court of Justice into account in the interpretation of laws which derive from the EU – at least until there is time and appetite to change them. To the extent that the ECJ is a symbol to many Brexiteers of all that is wrong with the EU – overbearing, overreaching and undemocratic – this sounds like a significant concession. It is also recognition that taking back control of your own laws, after 44 years during which a large proportion have been designed with the EU in mind, is not an easy task. It is also yet another indication that the domestic civil service will be overwhelmed with the task of dealing with post-Brexit Britain and that large parts of the policy agenda will be given secondary consideration (see this article in today’s Observer).

All this suggests that there is a dawning realisation in government that the process of exiting the EU will be a lot more complex than people were led to believe twelve months ago (don’t say I didn’t warn you). It will also cause friction within the group of Leave supporters who seem to be split between the desire to “take back control” (whatever that means) and the slightly less-unhinged who (wrongly) see Brexit as an opportunity to remap Britain’s international trading relationships. Anyone advocating a clean break after two years of Article 50 negotiations is simply intent on marching the UK towards the cliff-edge that the prime minister is intent on avoiding. I am thus more optimistic after this week than I have been for a long time that if we cannot avoid Brexit, we may at least be able to secure an exit which minimises the damage.

It also raises the question of post-Brexit UK-EU relations? Extrapolating from this week’s (admittedly very small) sample of events, there is a possibility that the UK could indeed become the half-in half-out member that Theresa May appeared to rule out in January. On the one hand, this is a very bad compromise for it will not give the Leavers what they want and will fail to satisfy the Remainers who argue that we can obtain the same benefits by remaining in the EU. Yet it is the least worst outcome for a country which appears intent on leaving the EU.

But it also raises another question of what the EU wants to be in future. Twenty years ago, many economists argued that the EU was not ready to pursue a policy of full integration and that a variable speed Europe was the better option. The rationale was that since many countries were coming from different starting points, attempts to impose common standards would raise the degree of strain as they were forced to arrive at the same point at the same time. The experience of EMU, in which Italian output has not expanded since it joined the single currency, is an indication of the damage that can be caused if countries do not put in place the requisite reforms to ensure they comply with common standards (in Italy’s case, this means labour market reform). Brexit may thus be a precursor of a regime in which different countries integrate at different speeds. It may be no bad thing, and I will come back to it in a future post.

But as the British may well prove over the coming years, EU membership may not be a binary choice. After all, in this day and age, consumers are increasingly unwilling to accept take-it-or-leave-it choices. Why should the EU be any different?

Brexit: More on the exit costs

It has widely been suggested that the European Commission will try and extract a high price from the UK in terms of the Brexit bill when it finally departs the EU which I looked at last week (here). But a report published today by the UK House of Lords (here) makes the point that “the UK will not be legally obliged to pay in to the EU budget after Brexit.”

The argument hinges on what happens if the Article 50 legislation expires without an agreement. One school of thought argues that under international law (the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, established in 1969) “obligations undertaken when the UK was still bound by the EU Treaties would not disappear at the moment of Brexit.” But another interpretation is that Article 50 offers no provision for measures to be applied in the event that the UK and EU fail to come to an agreement. Indeed, there is no provision to decide who is the competent jurisdiction to adjudicate on post-Brexit matters or conflicts. So if the Article 50 negotiations fail there is no way that the UK can be held to account.

The problem is, of course, that there is no simple legal answer to the question and like economists, lawyers tend to offer a range of different opinions. Prime minister May has already suggested that the UK will be willing to make some form of contribution so the idea of making no payment is unlikely. Equally, however, it suggests that the €60bn bill which Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, is reportedly aiming for will be rejected outright by the UK. But this is when matters start to get tricky because a large part of the time available under the Article 50 arrangements will be wasted trying to resolve this problem. This, of course, plays to the EC’s advantage because even if it has no realistic possibility of securing a €60bn payout, it can tie the UK in knots for months. Then when it does finally get round to discussing trade arrangements, the UK will have little time to respond and may be forced to accept an arrangement which can only be described as a second best option.

Precisely because the UK government wishes to maintain close ties to the EU, it will be almost morally obliged to make some sort of payment. Ingeborg Grässle MEP, Chair of the European Parliament Budgetary Control Committee, suggested in testimony to the Lords that a figure as low as €22bn might be sufficient to cover the UK’s obligations. I reckon that is the sort of figure the government could live with.

Looking further ahead, there is the question of how much the UK will have to continue to pay in order to maintain access to certain EU projects. On a per capita basis, calculations presented in the Lords report suggest that at €115 per annum, Norway pays around 45% more than the UK does now (€79). Of course, Norway pays for access to the single market which PM May has already ruled out for the UK. But if the UK wants to continue accessing the EU market it will need to pay – either in the form of an annual membership fee or via tariffs. As Richard Ashworth MEP noted in his Lords testimony, a regular annual payment to the EU budget might work out far cheaper than paying tariffs. In his view, “the tariff  that will  be  paid ... seems to be a very, very substantial sum of money indeed ... I do not think it has dawned on people yet quite how big that sum is going to be.”

That being the case, the prospect that the UK continues to pay an annual fee for tariff-free access to the EU is a realistic one. But how high would the subscription cost be? Let us start from the premise that the UK will pay no more than half its current net cost. That would put the upper limit at around £5bn per annum. The government could claim that this represents a significant saving on its current bill (almost £20bn) and that it has saved £15bn per year. However, the reality is that since the UK receives back almost half its gross contribution in terms of rebate, agricultural subsidies and other items, the actual savings are relatively small. Continuing to pay a contribution to the EU is not what Brexit supporters had in mind during the referendum campaign. But if the UK is able to get away with a £5bn (€5.8bn) annual contribution and a one-off exit payment of €25bn, that would count as a good deal in my book. If I were on the UK negotiating team, that would certainly be an outcome I would be pushing for.

Taking Europe's temperature

For all that many of the claims made by the UK Brexiteers are absurd, there is a rising tide of dissatisfaction across the whole of Europe towards the EU. This is a danger of which politicians and bureaucrats in Brussels must surely be aware. After all, the evidence comes from the European Commission’s own Eurobarometer survey. The survey, which is conducted biannually, has shown that since late-2011 more than 50% of respondents have registered a lack of trust in the EU whereas prior to the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, distrust levels were running at significantly less than 40%.

Ironically, there are seven countries above the UK in the latest Eurobarometer survey indicating high levels of EU distrust. Perhaps not surprisingly Greece tops the list with 78% of respondents expressing dissatisfaction. Worryingly, given the proximity of the French presidential election, France is in third place with 65% whilst Italy is sixth at 58%. The UK’s 56% dissatisfaction reading is only slightly ahead of Germany (53.2%) which also happens to be around the EU average (53.9%).

However, it is one thing to be dissatisfied with the status quo – it is another thing for voters to opt for departure as has happened in the UK. In a bid to assess the degree of Euroscepticism, perhaps we ought to pay closer attention to the degree of optimism shown by voters towards the future of the EU, on the basis that those who are the most pessimistic are the most likely to want to leave. Here, the picture is slightly different. On the whole, EU citizens show a moderate balance of net optimists (53%, if we exclude those expressing no opinion). But again, Greek citizens show the greatest degree of hostility with only 32% recording optimism regarding the future, whilst the French are in third place (42%) with the Brits fourth (44%).

On the basis that French optimism levels were lower than those of the UK even before the Brexit vote, this suggests that we should take the threat of Marine Le Pen more seriously than we are today. Although the generally accepted view is that Le Pen has no chance of winning the second round, there is a danger that too many pundits are looking back at 2002 and arguing that a coalition will form to stop the Front National (FN) winning the presidency at any cost – just as happened to her father. This view, which is expressed both in France and abroad, might be a touch complacent. Marine Le Pen is not the antagonistic figure that her father was (indeed, still is even in his eighties). If Le Pen continues to hammer home the message that the EU is the root cause of many of France’s ills, she may well run her challenger far closer than the expected 60-40 defeat that the polls currently predict. This is not to say she will win, but if the result is a close run thing, it does suggest that the FN is likely to be a force to be reckoned with in the years to come and that their popularity may not necessarily peak in 2017.

In any case, what has changed since 2002 is that immigration policy is far higher on the list of voter concerns than it was 15 years ago. The Eurobarometer survey indicates that at the EU level it is far and away the biggest concern, followed by terrorism issues, whilst the economic situation trails in a poor third. French voters apparently believe that unemployment is the biggest single domestic issue with immigration some way behind. If the FN manages to convince voters that the EU is partially responsible for the lack of jobs, it will only bolster their standing in the polls.

What is perhaps most concerning for politicians across the continent is that the degree of dissatisfaction which began to take hold in 2008 is gaining momentum. There is little doubt that the economic crisis of 2008, which morphed into a full-blown Greek debt crisis in 2010, has been badly handled. Greek voters are resentful that they have been forced to accept austerity whilst voters in other EMU countries are less than keen to continue providing support. The apparent inability of the EU to defend its borders, with the result that huge numbers of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa have entered Europe, has also caused resentment. The German government’s policy of throwing open its doors in 2015 is widely perceived to have exacerbated the problem because it has raised tensions in other countries on the transit route that were not consulted.

All this is happening at a time when Europe lacks leaders unable to sell a vision of what the EU can achieve. At least in the days of Kohl and Mitterrand we knew the direction in which Europe was travelling even if not everyone agreed. Without strong leadership, the EU as we know it is doomed – at best to irrelevance, at worst to further fragmentation. The Eurobarometer surveys make it clear what EU citizens are concerned about. But is anyone in Brussels listening?

The rhymes of history

“More than the success of the Brussels negotiations is imperilled by the divisions of the western world … The western alliance lies spread-eagled after losing both common purpose and mutual confidence.” It could have been written yesterday. In fact it was written almost 54 years ago and forms the opening lines of the Glasgow Herald editorial from 15 January 1963. The context of the article was French President de Gaulle’s decision to reject British attempts at membership of what was then called the EEC, whilst also rejecting US overtures to provide the weaponry to help defend Europe which he regarded as usurping the French place on the world stage.

Fast forward to 2016 and we are again debating the nature of Britain’s relationships with its European partners, whilst the extent to which the US is prepared to underwrite Europe’s military defence has been one of the issues in Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign. In many ways, de Gaulle’s fears look remarkably prescient. When asked what was France’s position regarding Britain’s entry into the Common Market, he replied “The Treaty of Rome was concluded between six continental States, States which are, economically speaking … of the same nature … The entry of Great Britain … will completely change the whole of the actions, the agreements, the compensation, the rules which have already been established between the Six … Then it will be another Common Market … which would be taken to 11 and then 13 and then perhaps 18 [and] would no longer resemble, without any doubt, the one which the Six built.” 

To put it simply, de Gaulle foresaw that the entry of the UK would be the thin end of an expansionary wedge which would change the nature of the European project. Historians argue about the old man’s motives but there is little doubt that the UK has never sat comfortably within the EU. Moreover, the eastward expansion in 2004, which almost doubled the number of member states, did indeed change the nature of the project as de Gaulle predicted.

I find this whole debate fascinating because it highlights that many of the problems which we face in the US and Europe today could usefully use a little historical perspective. We can debate whether the trend in the US towards retreat from some of the world’s more intractable problems has echoes of the isolationism of the 1930s with all its attendant consequences, though I have no intention of doing so here. For those interested in a more detailed take on US foreign policy, I would recommend organisations such as The Foreign Policy Association (here).  Suffice to say that we should have a better idea next week of the direction in which US foreign policy is likely to evolve.

But when it comes to European issues, it is safe to say that never in my lifetime has the continent appeared so febrile and policy so lacking in direction. In recent years, the EU has suffered a crisis of confidence brought about initially by the Greek debt crisis and latterly by a huge refugee influx. In part, this reflects the over-confidence of the 1990s which prompted the EU to expand too far, too fast. It also reflects policy mistakes, particularly with regard to the economy. Indeed, it increasingly appears that the construction of monetary union failed to adhere to de Gaulle’s message that forcing disparate countries together in a single economic system was a recipe for disaster. This came about because policy makers across Europe used economic structures for political purposes. But as every economic historian knows, fixed currency arrangements tend to end in tears (I will explore this in a future post).

The solution to many of the EU’s economic woes is more federalism, but the tide of public opinion is swinging back in the other direction. It increasingly looks as though the EU built the foundations of the structure which it wanted to become but delayed for too long in building the walls, let alone the roof. The tide of history is now moving too quickly for the EU to resurrect the ideas of the 1990s but a return to the Common Market ideal of 1957 also appears unpalatable to many European politicians today. Yet the latter option may be the only solution which is ultimately workable for a Europe riven with disparate economic and political goals.

As for the UK, it is quite clearly a nation ill at ease with itself. Half its voters want to secede from the EU and half do not. Yet such is the febrile mood today that when the judiciary rules parliament must have a say in how the country leaves the EU, it is accused by the Fourth Estate (the unelected and self-styled voice of the people) of being an enemy of democracy. Lest we forget, the early years of the Thatcher government were also a period of extreme social unrest but I cannot recall an atmosphere as poisoned as the one we have today. Economic rationality (if such a thing can be said to exist) is being totally ignored as we debate our economic future.

Mark Twain is reputed to have said that history never repeats but it does rhyme. But the poem being written today is not of the epic variety. It is closer to the worst kind of doggerel.

What a state

This week’s State of the Union address by European Commission President Juncker contained an admission that the EU faces an existential crisis. As he put it, “it is as if there is almost no intersection between the EU and its national capitals anymore.” Whatever people may think of Juncker – and there are many who do not hold him in high regard – his analysis of what ails Europe was spot on. His comment that “we Europeans can never accept Polish workers being harassed, beaten up or even murdered on the streets of Harlow” was a justified dig at the apparent rise in xenophobia and racism on the streets of Britain in the wake of the EU referendum, where figures show a significant increase of late.

Yet I could not help thinking that his plan of action was an appeal to the high minded ideals which drove the EU forward in better times, with its calls for solidarity and tolerance, rather than any significant change in direction. Whilst I am convinced of the ideals which Juncker espoused, there are many millions who are not, and I am not sure that he devoted enough thought to the issue of why people are not buying into his ideal. Part of the problem stems from the fact that many nations have little time for the political union aspects of the project, and see it more as an economic enterprise. That is certainly true of the Brits and is probably also true of the 13 nations which joined after 2004. And I would argue that economics is the EU’s weak spot.

Even today, the EU spends almost 40% of its budget on agriculture. Admittedly that is a long way short of the 73% in 1985, but it has been a consistent source of annoyance to countries such as the UK which have a much more efficient farming sector than many other EU nations. The good news is that the EU is reducing its real outlays on this sector but I am not convinced that it is an industry which deserves the priority which Juncker gave it in his speech. More worrying is that free movement of labour is a policy whose implications were not fully thought through. It was the issue at the heart of the UK referendum campaign and it is not too far from the surface in countries such as France.

Moreover, the EU has also not fully got to grips with taxation policy. Indeed, it has invested huge amounts of political capital in the single currency project, yet allows individual countries to set their own tax levels without any form of transfer equalisation. This resulted in the bizarre situation whereby Ireland, which had engaged in a form of corporate tax competition, effectively declared insolvency in 2010 and had to rely on other EMU members for a bailout on punitive terms. The madness of EU tax policy was compounded by the European Commission's recent decision to force Apple to pay €13bn of back taxes to the Irish government, which neither asked for nor wants the money. As Juncker put it, “The level of taxation in a country like Ireland is not our issue. Ireland has the sovereign right to set the tax level wherever it wants. But it is not right that one company can evade taxes that could have gone to Irish families and businesses, hospitals and schools.” That is one view. Nigel Farage put it differently: “if you think the EU’s Apple judgement was bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.  When the EU destroys your corporate tax regime, you will realise, you are better off out of the EU’s failing political union.”

But the EU’s biggest failing is its failure to understand that in its current incarnation, the single currency is fundamentally flawed. According to Juncker, “Being European, for most of us, also means the euro. During the global financial crisis, the euro stayed strong and protected us from even worse instability.” Really? I suspect the Greeks might think differently given that their economy is in not merely suffering a recession but depression. A weaker currency would actually help alleviate some of the strains facing some of the EU nations (fortunately, the ECB recognises this). But Juncker was right about one thing: “Mario Draghi … is making a stronger contribution to jobs and growth than many of our Member States.”

I regret the UK’s decision to leave the EU. But in the face of an existential crisis which is seeing the bloc split into three distinct regions (northern, southern and eastern for ease of geographical exposition), each with its own issues, we are going to need more than warm words to get all members pulling in the right direction.