European Union leaders will today convene for an extraordinary European Council called in the wake of the United Kingdom’s unprecedented and historical vote to leave the European Union.
The meeting is likely to be dominated by discussion by those who want the UK to leave as soon as possible and those who would prefer a more gradual secession. Those who are calling for a quick exit are understandably rattled by fears of contagion and literally want to stop the rot. While the EU’s top man Donald Tusk has said that the EU will become even more united and closer, this is not what all members want, and the far right in France is already calling for a referendum similar to the Brexit.
The procedure for an EU member leaving the EU surrounds Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which was only recently added in. There are two ways it can be triggered. The first is by the head of the country in question sending a formal letter to the President of the European Council, and the second by formally stating so during a Council session.
The EU’s parliament president Martin Schultz as well as EU Commission President jean Claude Juncker want this to happen at the earliest, meaning that they literally want British Prime Minister David Cameron to make the declaration today. This is indeed a body blow for Cameron as the day after, nominations are set to open within the Tory Party for a new leader.
The odd thing is that after all the shenanigans pulled by former London Mayor Boris Johnson, he has been very subdued, possibly realising that this has now become a poisoned chalice, in terms of the threats of breakup of the United Kingdom as Scotland’s parliament is seriously considering another independence referendum at the earliest possible opportunity, coupled with the very real threat of the Ulster province joining a unified Ireland.
The truth of the matter is that no one really knows how to deal with this and there is no hard and fast rulebook for the way forward. The only experience which the EU faced was when Greenland – a territory belonging to Denmark, voted to leave the EU back in the 1980s, largely due to the common fishing policy which was severely impacting on its people’s livelihoods as fishermen.
But Greenland has a population of just a few tens of thousands, whereas the UK is the fifth largest economy in the world, the owner of the working language of the world, Europe’s biggest financial centre in the City of London, the EU’s largest military power and a known broker in world diplomacy.
David Cameron must be ruing the day he promised a referendum on EU membership when there was hardly any public clamour for it. He did it merely to appease the sceptics in his party that were threatening to destabilise his attempt at a second sting in Downing Street. What a tragic end after such a high risk gamble. What the EU needs to do now is safeguard the future of the union, and that might not be the move towards federalism and an ever integrated Europe which Germany and France are pushing for. What is needed immediately is for the EU to make itself more relevant, to reach out to its citizens and to truly evaluate the areas of our Continent which need help to bring their standards of living up and to close the ever widening gap between the rich and poor. Failure to do so will result in more and more blocks being pulled out of our multinational Jenga tower.