UCL PUBLIC POLICY
JACK STRAW LECTURE: ‘BRITAIN AND EUROPE’
6 December 2012
Jack Straw began by discussing the Congress System established by Lord Castlereagh,
suggesting that there were lessons in the fact that it had ultimately become an undemocratic
institution. He pointed to the danger of entrenchment for elite political institutions
He observed that the UK had a key role in establishing Council of Europe, which had helped to
embed basic principles of 'common decency and treatment of others'. He also welcomed the role
of the European Court of Human Rights, but felt that it was widening its scope beyond its original
purpose and failing to sustain its own legitimacy – something he pointed to as a common tendency
of supra-national institutions. Overall, he felt that the European Union had delivered immense
social and cultural benefit.
However, he suggested that EU is 'larger, more pervasive institution than even its founders could
have envisaged, but one now facing a near-existential crisis beyond their worst fears.' The current
Eurozone crisis is perhaps the most serious example of the development of the European Union
being led by political elites.
Professor Straw recognised that political elites were a natural feature of political systems, and
operated successfully as long as they have legitimacy. In national political systems, such
legitimacy is provided by national elections; however this was not the case for Europe. Rather, he
suggested, 'the longer the European Parliament has been established, the less has been voters'
regard for it'.
The absence of publicly contested action for leadership or policy within the European Union has
resulted in a significant democratic deficit, which consequently has undermined its legitimacy and
popular accountability.
A symptom of this is that the early warnings of problems with the Eurozone were ignored, long
before the crisis hit. Although ‘the fatal flaw in the design of the euro’ (that as a single currency, it
would require some of the institutions of a single state) was known well before the euro was
agreed, this was not addressed.
The UK clearly has significant interest in how Eurozone crisis can be resolved. Whilst this
shouldn't mean hectoring European leaders, it should entail setting out a clear analysis and being
fully engaged with European processes in order to exert influence.
It would be important to ensure that the single market operates more effectively in the future
(recognising that even before the current problems, the Euro was not wholly successfully). Solving
the problems with the Euro would require being honest about past mistakes and overcoming
Europe’s predilection to ‘intellectual arrogance’.
Professor Straw also believed that any discussions about the future of the EU must involve
engagement with Turkey.
He concluded by emphasising that political elites in Europe need to carry the support of their
electorates, or risk a democratic crisis, which could threaten the institutional fabric of the EU. The
new EU agenda should be focused on global issues and foreign policy, rather than 'tinkering with
matters which should be left to member states'. It is essential that the EU has popular legitimacy
for its actions.
Response from Sir Stephen Wall
Sir Stephen recalled the formation of the European union between the 9 original members, which
at the time was seen as more of an aspiration than a commitment. Nevertheless, most serious
analysis of the time suggested that the most successful ingredients of a monetary union were a
single currency, single interest rate, single exchange rate, single fiscal policy, and single Treasury
– but it is only now that there is serious discussion of whether to have a single fiscal policy.
There had thus been a widening of the gap between reality and aspiration. He suggested that the
European project has been successful because, despite being devised and run by political elites, in
almost every member state other than Britain, what the elites did had popular support.
In terms of the Eurozone crisis, there was a tension for the UK Government between what it
thought was in its own interests, and what was in the interest of public and party opinion. The
change in the Prime Minister’s language in the last week or two suggests that the Government has
concluded that what is most in the UK interest is that the renewed deal for the Eurozone proposed
by Angela Merkel should be done with the involvement of the 27 EU members, rather than the 17
Eurozone members, so that Britain is included and enjoys the protection of EU institutions, rather
than losing leverage. However, given the pressures from Eurosceptic in the Conservative Party,
the Government will need to secure something in exchange, such as an ‘emergency brake’ which
could be applied to EU legislation.
Sir Stephen asserted that most of those involved in the European project believed that it was
central to success and peace in Europe. However, he recognised that it is not possible to persist in
that project (especially given the lack of economic successes) without democratic consent. The
paradox of achieving democratic consent was that the EU was not seen as relevant by voters but
the farther detached they were, the less democratic consent existed. He suggested that the
European Union would only become relevant to voters if the European Commission was an
executive, answerable to the European Parliament, with heads of member states as a senate.
However, this remained a remove possibility, leaving a hybrid structure.
Despite the challenges, the reality is that there is no other organisation that exists to prevent the
escalation of disagreements between European countries, and to bring European influence to bear
on the world. The European Union needs to be made to work more effectively; and he agreed with
Jack Straw that this required a new form of democratic consent.
Questions
The first round of questions discussed the issues of legitimacy and the democratic deficit that had
been raised by Jack Straw, including whether a different voting system for EU elections in the U, a
directly-elected European Parliament president, and more discsussion of Europe by mainstream
parties, particularly during elections, could help to address this.
Professor Straw suggested that the fundamental problem with the European Parliament was that
there was no European polity – just a collection of nation state politics. His preference would be for
the European Parliament to be an effective assembly of national parliaments, although he
recognised that this was unlikely to happen.
The discussion then moved to whether Britain should be focused more on pursuing alliances with
BRIC countries than with Europe; why Professor Straw changed his position between arguing for a
referendum on the EU constitutions and on the Lisbon Treaty; and why European policy debates
were absent from an increasingly intercultural media.
Professor Straw argued that Britain was much better able to develop alliances with BRIC with the
strength of EU behind us. He recognised that he had changed his position between the debates
over the European Constitution and the Lisbon Treaty, but had no longer been Foreign Secretary
at the time of the Lisbon Treaty, and recognise the importance of getting the treaty ratified. He
suggested that the absence of discussion of European policy in the media reflected the absence of
polity in Europe and that the media goes where the power is.
Finally, there was discussion of how legislation was put forward in the European Parliament and
whether the democratic deficit resulted from it being generated not by elected representatives but
unelected officials; whether there was a lack of political leadership in Britain’s relationship with the
EU so that negative public perceptions were simply following the negative position of politicians;
and the possible consequences for the UK and Europe should there be a failure to successfully
resolve the Eurozone crisis, in particular the opportunity to re-envisage European institutions?
Professor Straw noted that the European Parliament operates through co-decision rather than as
national parliament, so that legislation was generated differently, but nevertheless was discussed
with member states and the relevant Council of Ministers as well as the European Parliament. He
argued there was a need to be pragmatic with regard to Europe, and whilst he felt some politicians
had been positive about Europe, there was also pressure to emphasise what had been gained rom
negations to generate domestic goodwill.
He emphasised that it was not in the interests of the UK for the Euro to fail; rather it was important
to repair the current situation with least possible damage. His instinct was that the crisis is so
serious that a deal will be put together because consequences of falling apart would be terrible.
Finally, Stephen Wall said that he was not very optimistic. He felt that so far, too little had been
done too late and even the current proposals were relatively modest and would take time to come
into effect. A sustainable deal would involve a political union of kind that has no real support in any
member state and fiscal transfer from rich to poor countries - but this was too unpalatable for EU
members. He suggested that the most benign scenario was that the euro and European Union just
about kept going but it was unclear what the long-term prognosis for stability and success was. For
first time ever, he felt gloomy about the future o the European Union.