EU President Donald Tusk certainly has his work cut out for him. Only days before a critical summit which could radically alter the functioning of the bloc. The massive issue at stake is, of course, the United Kingdom’s demands for a reformed European Union. British Prime Minister David Cameron is seeking to reform the European Union’s workings. He has already pledged that he will hold a referendum in the United Kingdom as early as June and has also told Mr Tusk that unless he gets a solid roadmap for reform at the end of this week’s summit, he will not be able to sell EU membership to the traditionally sceptical British public.
It is a gamble. On the one hand, if the EU is reformed, it will irritate those who are pushing for further and deeper integration within the EU and the Eurozone. On the other hand, if the UK decides to leave the bloc, then the EU will have lost one of its most influential players, in terms of diplomatic clout, the finance sector, as well as the military.
On Monday night, the taciturn and pragmatic Tusk made public his fears that the UK leaving the EU might have catastrophic effects on the union, leading to a slow, or even fast unravelling of the bloc, especially in the face of the unprecedented migration crisis which all members are facing.
Cameron has been bullish, saying; “Everyone has always known the British to be argumentative and not easily given to compromise. I make no apology for that. That is who we are.” But such an attitude goes against the very foundations of what the European Union is supposed to stand for.
Regardless of the UK problem, the union is in a dire state as individual members have been reduced to bickering amongst each other about quotas for migrant resettlement, which ultimately led to the raising of razor wire fences, something which was reminiscent of the old East-West divide.
"The migratory crisis we are witnessing now is testing our Union to its limits," Tusk said Monday. He is right. But of course, Malta knows all about this. For years, and under successive government’s we raised the issue time and time again. Each time, we were fobbed off. It was only when the Libya route largely shut down and the Turkey to Greece route became the journey of choice that Europe began to feel the real squeeze, just as Malta did in years gone by when the sub-Saharan phenomenon was at its peak.
It is also becoming very clear that individual member states have tired of the EU’s ineffective (to say the least) handling of the crisis. It has descended to local levels with individual governments believing that they, and they alone, can do what is best for their nation’s interests, going against another fundamental tenet of the EU’s foundations – that of solidarity and mutual assistance.
It is definitely going to be a make or break summit. What Malta can do to mediate, remains to be seen. It is a known that Joseph Muscat does have the ear of David Cameron, just as his predecessor Lawrence Gonzi did. The Prime Minister has kept close counsel of what his position is, and it will only probably emerge in one of the press points given at the Justus Lipsius building on Thursday or Friday evening. This summit will go one of two ways. If there is goodwill and a genuine want to discuss and negotiate, EU leaders will definitely be burning the midnight oil. But if it becomes clear, very quickly, that all sides are too far apart, it will turn into a non event. We certainly hope that it will not be the latter, but much of that depends on David Cameron and Donald Tusk’s ability to foster dialogue to overcome sharp division that is very evidently present.