Thanks to Putin, the EU steps up as a stronger and serious geopolitical actor

A few days are eternal in politics. What dramatic, historic, positive changes we are witnessing in EU politics. It’s truly heartening to see these changes happening! 

After a full scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU belatedly but strongly came back with truly crippling sanction measures and various other measures including a SWIFT ban to most of the Russian banks affecting its exports and imports, freezing the assets of its Central Bank in the EU, the UK, Canada and the US, paralysing its ability to finance the war – arguably the strongest measure, targeting the assets of the Russian oligarchs, banning the EU airspace for Russian flights, banning the fake news channels RT and Sputnik across the EU. 

Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine made the unthinkable happen in the EU and in Germany. It not only allowed other German made weapons to be sent to Ukraine, but Germany itself will send anti-tank weapons and anti-craft defence systems. The foreign ministers also agreed to make use of the European Peace Facility, an instrument that allows the EU to finance the weapons that are sent to third countries in need. Euro 500 million in military aid was agreed in the form of lethal and non-lethal weapons. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced this as a landmark agreement and that “Another taboo has fallen. The taboo that the EU was not providing arms in a war. Yes we are doing it.”

Besides that many EU leaders and the EU Commission President have already started talking about once the war is over, Ukrainian EU membership can be fast-tracked. Putin always considered Ukraine to be an inalienable part of the former Soviet Union. He never was able to digest the fact that Ukraine has become an independent country and that too a successful functioning democracy and even more that it has become a liberal democracy close to the EU and the NATO. These were the main reasons that he started this war but the end result is that he has only accelerated the process in the opposite direction. Similarly Russia’s other neighbour Finland is also seriously considering joining NATO and has already become much closer to NATO. 

On Sunday, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced a 100 billion Euro fund for new weaponry that would enable Germany to fulfill its NATO spending commitments. This increase in defence spending would be a major shift in German political history. He also attributed this shift to the Russian invasion which has been “a turning point in the history of our Continent”. 

These are unprecedented U-turns and landmark agreements from the EU – all in response to the bellicose actions shown by Putin. If the EU keeps up with this momentum and continues to takes strong decisions, it would only be better for them and for global peace. It should continue in its path to make Russia under Putin a pariah state in the world and make the rest of the world disconnect with Russia under Putin. 

It again proves that only a crisis can forge EU consensus, allow the EU to take bold decisions on a revolutionary scale and take responsibility which they have been avoiding for long. So as a collateral to the uncalled for Russian invasion and the belligerent posture, the unexpected upshot has been the EU becoming a serious geopolitical actor.

Along with these positive changes in the EU, the dramatic and inspiring rise of the Ukrainian President Zelensky is heartening as well. From a comedian-actor in TV to President for 3 years, and now leading Ukraine at its most desperate time since 1941, he has risen to the challenge and went beyond anyone’s imagination as a truly inspiring and courageous leader. He won many people’s hearts around the world when he said “The fight is here. I need ammunition, not ride” when he was offered an escape route by the US. The whole Ukrainian population, resisting the formidable Russian forces, has earned the admiration of the world. 

The sad part is that with Putin’s adventure, no country will feel safe. Now every country will increase spending on defence to the detriment of spending on other useful measures and trust in other countries will fall to a new low.

The EU led by Germany and France abandons Ukraine amidst Russian invasion

The EU leaders led by Germany and France were always hoping that diplomacy is the best approach. Just by regularly talking to Putin, can avoid war or any crisis. This has been their principled stand for the last decades. This is despite the uncalled for incursion into Georgian territory in 2008, the annexation of Crimea and incursion in Eastern Ukraine. The EU’s response to those serious incursions that time was very meek and insufficient. Only after the Dutch KLM flight was shot down under the Ukrainian airspace by the Russian supported armed forces, did the EU announce sanctions and it has been maintaining those sanctions until now. Although it has affected the Russian economy, it is not largely bothered by it. But the EU leaders never learned any lessons during those course of events until now.

I’ve warned about Russia several times in my blog and in all my discussions with many European analysts that Russia is the biggest threat for the EU and they are naive and vastly underestimating his motives and he is someone who cannot be trusted. But in Germany, they blinked and didn’t get it at all. The Baltic countries, especially Estonia, Lithuania and Poland were consistently warning about Putin’s real motives all along in the last decade. They know and understand Putin well… far far better than any other leaders in the EU. Sadly and tragically, their calls fell on deaf ears. 

Kaja Kallas, the Estonian PM, is perhaps one of the very few sensible leaders in the EU at the moment. She said in a recent interview to FT that “There seems to be a certain type of naivety towards Russia. I was trying to explain this to President Macron as well: you are seeing this through the prism of a democratic country. You say that it’s going to be super-expensive for Russia to have a war… Putin doesn’t care. He’s not up for elections.” On Macron she was spot on: “I feel there is a strong wish to be the hero who solves this case, but I don’t think it’s solvable like this.”

Despite all the Baltic leaders and the Polish politicians voicing it so clearly, Macron and the German politicians didn’t get it, and were still believing in diplomacy and in a naive assumption that he will not invade. This was despite 150,000 soldiers on the border of Ukraine, nuclear drills being conducted and armed forces remaining in Belarus. The US and the British intelligence were consistently warning about the imminent full scale invasion. But yet we cannot completely say that they didn’t anticipate this invasion because they were preparing for an exodus of refugees to pour into Poland. Most of the European politician’s views might have been that if at all there is a fight, it would be confined only to the eastern Ukraine region. 

I wasn’t surprised by this invasion once Putin announced that he is recognising both Luhansk and Donetsk. The audacity that he showed in invading Ukraine only shows that he knows the EU is incapable of acting tough against Russia. That those threatened sanction measures were nothing that would affect his calculations. The US has been consistently warning and was at least acting tough. The two major culprits of this blunder are the German leaders and the French President Macron. I reckon these two are simply incapable of learning any lessons nor capable of understanding. They should have left the Russia policy to the Baltic countries and Poland. As Kallas says the Russian actions are a constant worry for the Baltics but it is just a theoretical discussion for the other EU members. Germany and France are scared, afraid and fearful of Russia. They don’t want to be seen as antagonising Russia for the fear of Putin doing something dramatic. But they don’t realise that Putin doesn’t care about diplomacy or democratic institutions or all the democratic niceties. The EU needs to be smart, be ahead of the Russian plans and basically stand up to Russia, stand up to their bullying. With the current EU leaders and their capabilities, it would remain as just wishful thinking!

The strong rhetoric by all the leaders was just not enough. Despite the Russian forces well into Kyiv, the EU leaders were pondering over these miniscule, meaningless belated sanctions which are not helpful in the short term anyway. What’s the point of announcing now? What are they trying to achieve after Russia has invaded Ukraine? These meagre sanctions (that were announced until the 25th February) would have some effects in the medium term but nothing in the short term. Well, maybe these sanctions went more than anything the EU has announced so far, but it fell far short of the actual events that took place – a full-scale invasion of a major country in a manner that has never happened since WWII. Immediately after Putin announced that he is recognising the two annexed regions in the Eastern Ukraine, the EU foreign minister Josep Borrell and other major leaders were talking about incremental sanctions, a last resort for diplomacy and ‘helping’ Putin to exit with a face saving measure. What? Seriously? I found it funny, stupid, naive! The Ukrainians and the Baltics have been calling for or rather pleading for sanctions beforehand to ‘deter’ Russia from taking any serious invasive measures. That would have been a tough and serious message. These meagre sanction measures were rightly criticised by many including Donald Tusk who called the German and Italian leaders disgraced themselves. The former Ukrainian ambassador Kostiantyn Yelisieiev felt that the EU leaders should be ashamed of their meek response and for leaving Ukraine alone in those moments to face Russian aggression. 

Few days earlier the Russian foreign minister mocked and belittled the EU and the US sanctions threat as nothing and that they are used to it and that they are not bothered about it. They were never bothered with the sanctions in the last 8 years. They should have banned the EU airspace for Russian flights by now. They should ban SWIFT which is under discussion, crippling Russian financial transaction capabilities. Sanctioning just 70 percent of the banks was not enough. And still Russia could comfortably finance its adventurous war with oil and gas supplies. He knows that the EU is reliant on Russian gas and oil and wouldn’t dare to cut off that supply. Besides, Putin is not interested in the economy, he is only interested in creating his legacy and the geopolitics arena.  

With very minimal resistance, Putin is having an easy ride in invading Ukraine after warning, with threatening consequences to anyone of interference in defending Ukraine. I expected a meek response from the EU and NATO but the resulting one was weaker than expected and toothless.

NATO perhaps is struggling to respond forcefully to Russia’s war in Ukraine as it doesn’t want to risk a larger conflict. The intention seems to be that it is all only Putin’s game, Putin’s moves and NATO is not involved in it at all and to ascertain the entire blame to Russia and that it cannot be blamed for this conflict. But in this process they were prepared to sacrifice Ukraine – a sovereign country and its civilians. It was prepared to lose Ukraine! That is sad, deplorable. Well, they have no obligation to rescue Ukraine but who would trust NATO or the EU anymore? This is a game played in front of the entire world to win brownie points that NATO was not the aggressor, not even entertaining war. But that is wrong! 

They also didn’t want to harm their economies by imposing crippling sanctions. Leading up to this situation, they could have at least supplied enough arms, missiles, bulletproof helmets, combat armoured vehicles, protective equipment,machine guns and other ammunition to Ukraine and all other possible help. Military aid should have been increased. But both the US and the EU member states floundered. Germany prevented Estonia from sending its German-made-arms to Ukraine. Germany made a joke of itself by sending 5000 helmets when asked for 200,000 helmets. No excuses would absolve those tragic decisions. The suspension of Nord stream 2 is a considerable decision but a non action on that pipeline would have been condemnable by everyone.

Yes, with crippling sanctions, the EU would suffer in the short term with even higher gas prices. Again as mentioned above they have not been prepared for such a situation in reducing their dependence on Russian gas and in transitioning faster to renewable energies. In Germany, they shouldn’t have shut down nuclear energy so soon last year. 

Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine is not about NATO. This is about Ukraine and he wants to create a legacy of sorts in attempting to recreate a Russian empire. He is on an imperialistic path and would be testing the limits of liberal democracies. He knows that he is up against meek opponents and a NATO which doesn’t want to risk a major conflict.

Ukraine has been moving boldly towards the EU strongly and unwaveringly in the last two decades. Both the people and most of the politicians favoured an EU path. With such strong support for the EU, the EU also engaged Ukraine seriously and allowed a close relationship stopping short of promising EU membership. But when Ukraine needed the EU the most, the EU left Ukraine hanging on its own and abandoned it. That’s a serious blunder which will rankle for decades and affect other neighbours and aspirants trust and reliability on the EU. The EU led by Germany and France has harmed its reputation that no one would be able to depend on them for safety anymore. 

After 2014, not only did the EU didn’t reduce its dependence on gas supply from Russia but the dependence has only increased. All this along with the talk about long term vision, strategy and strategic autonomy! Besides increasing dependency, Germany also went ahead with Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. After the experience of 2014, the EU neither helped Ukraine build up capacity to defend itself. The German politicians belatedly took some responsibilities for that. The former defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said “We have wasted 8 years discussing weapons deliveries (to Ukraine) while not doing so. I’m so angry at ourselves for our historical failure (to deter Russian President Putin). Strategists in Europe had forgotten that we have to be militarily strong enough to make non-negotiation not an option for the other side”. Matthew Karnitschnig, the Chief Europe Correspondent of Politico Europe also said exactly what I’ve been saying for the last decade that the views from Berlin now is “I think what’s happened today is a complete repudiation of German foreign policy towards Russia over more than a decade, because there’ve been many people outside of Germany who have been warning the Germans, saying, ‘you don’t understand how dangerous Putin is. You don’t understand what he’s really up to’. The Germans basically chose a different path from confrontation, which was to coddle him – to ignore the many transgressions he’s committed”. 

Now the prospects for Ukraine are bleak. That country has been lost in the altar of the EU’s stupidity and naivety in doing nothing to help that country defend itself. With this kind of thinking and response, the EU would not become even a small respectable power in the world, forget about being a major power in the world. They are simply incapable of being decisive, dynamic and thinking through. Certainly, here, the unanimity rule is not to be blamed. The blame squarely has to go to Germany, France and Italy.

After Merkel, what?

For sure she was more popular than the party CDU and this has been proven by the recent election results. The last few weeks also show that the CDU would miss her the most. During her term, she moved the centre-right CDU more to the centre borrowing policies from the SPD and thereby squeezing the SPD between the centre CDU and the Greens on the left of the centre and the Die Linke further towards the left. She was able to attract centrist voters to vote for CDU who would not have otherwise voted for the CDU.

As she leaves the centre stage, she still remains hugely popular not only in Germany but also in the whole of Europe and many attribute the stability of Germany and the EU mainly to her. One trait she has earned throughout her time was that she could be trusted.

There is a lot of talk of how things would get through in the post Merkel era and rightly so. 16 years as the leader of the biggest economy is going to end soon. The oldest leader in the EU Council is going to leave. The Merkel era is known for stability, for getting through difficult times, for managing conflicts within the EU Council and her personalised stamp of minimalist developments defined the era.

During her term she avoided dramatic shifts. Her style of functioning was incremental shifts and often settling for the lowest common denominator. This had both admirers and detractors. The admirers felt that she was inclusive, and was not disruptive and could sell the incremental changes to their populace but the detractors felt settling for lowest common denominator showed her insecurity, risk-averse approach, lack of ambition, lack of the big picture.

The selection of the Commission Presidents, EEAS Secretary Generals, Council Presidents and other important posts were not given to candidates who were the best possible ones because they were strong personalities and could dominate the member states. She went with the lowest common denominator always – someone agreeable to all, who would be subservient to the member states. She never looked for someone incredibly capable and tried to push that person ahead. She lacked leadership. She always gilded along. She never took tough decision except for allowing the migrants in 2015. Radical and courageous measures are needed in certain areas to face the current geopolitical challenges. What we need is a courageous and visionary leader. Her mission seems to be to preserve the unity of the union, bridge internal divides, reconcile divergent positions and thereby protect the EU’s cohesion.

An ECFR survey has emphasised that the Merkel era has stabilised enough and earned respect and trust across the EU for the new leader to be dynamic and visionary to lead the EU ahead facing the current challenges.

It is true that wanting to bring everyone on board and to make EU cohesion an absolute priority is that it limits one’s ability to act.

The Merkel government’s support for austerity during the Eurozone crisis and obsession with public debt and Germany’s huge trade surplus have drawn more criticism than any other policies.  

Her achievements were initiating the Lisbon Treaty in 2007 and getting it done within few years of the twin referendum defeat. Germany took the leadership in getting through the financial crisis and banking crisis. The 2015 migration crisis was the one time she really stood for her own principle and the personal side of hers, which is rarely known outside, was revealed. She came up with the term ‘Wir schaffen das’.

Her role was mixed when it came to bailing out the PIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) especially Greece. Although the crisis was averted, the austerity measures imposed severely dented the Greece economy and its social fabric and were not regarded as the right kind of policy mix by many. Later the IMF reviews themselves criticised the overtly austere focus of the Greece program.

Her tight balancing of the China policy with trade relationship and foreign policy were appreciated in the beginning but as China became more muscular in its foreign policy, Germany failed to adapt to that change and has increasingly allowed its trade policy to dominate foreign policy.

Her EU policy were lacking dynamism, fresh ideas, long term vision.

One of the major failures was no initiative towards the Balkans enlargement. The last 16 years haven’t seen any improvement in Balkans enlargement prospects or in their economies. Germany usually a strong enlargement advocate showed almost no leadership and focus towards the Balkans despite frequent rhetoric of the importance of the Balkans to the EU, the future of the Balkans is in the EU and increasing trade relationship. There was not much movement on Serbia – Kosovo relationship either.

The Middle East was also a failure on her part. The EU with no hard power, should have used its enormous soft power sufficiently to engage and rebuild Libya, Egypt and Tunisia but either failed badly or was half hearted. Without the US support, which it is used to falling back on, it failed to take decisions and act independently wherever possible. Germany as the biggest power lacked vision and leadership.

Nordstream II was another avoidable bad policy. To reduce the cost burden of shifting from nuclear energy and coal power, she had opted for cheaper gas with the Nordstream II project but it was a costly strategic mistake.  

Her handling of Cameron and Brexit, were not too great either. From the time when David Cameron got elected in 2010, he turned UK to be a Eurosceptic country after 13 years of pro-EU Labour government, which actively engaged in EU affairs. Merkel never questioned Cameron’s anti EU turns nor disputed all the lies that he was propagating about the EU in London. Of course there were reforms that the EU needs to have undertaken but those were not mentioned in the reforms that Cameron prescribed to the EU that were needed for the UK to remain in the EU. Merkel instead of engaging critically with Cameron’s request, went ahead largely unquestioned with his plea and allowed him a lot more space than he deserved or put crudely she fell for his blackmails.

The worst of her foreign policies was the Russia policy. It was miserable to say the least. She never got the Russia policy right despite exposed to Russia’s behaviour from her childhood. With that single failure, she also failed to get due respect from Poland and the Baltic countries. The EU Russia policy led by her and the French Presidents were always late to react on serious violations from the Russia side and when they reacted, it was disproportionately less to the issue in hand. Putin knew that the EU was spineless, would not react, got bolder and bolder and acted with little impunity and didn’t take the EU seriously enough. It was a misplaced idea when in August 2021 she and Macron called for EU leaders summit meeting with Russia similar to the one Biden had with Russia saying that the EU shouldn’t be left out. The Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda rightly said “Russia respected the US because it is a strategic nuclear power and the EU is not and the EU stands for principles and values. Russia doesn’t respect principles and values and it only values hard power”. His fellow Baltic country leaders Latvia and Estonia also mentioned that there has been no movement forward in the Donbass region and Crimea and that just recently the Russians insulted the EU HR. Rutte was the one who said it bluntly and boldly that he wouldn’t want to be in the same room as Putin is. That should be the stand of the EU. Merkel later said that she would have preferred a bolder approach but that only shows that she has not learnt any lessons. She and Macron claim that they would need to engage with Russia in Syria, Libya, Africa and Middle East. Even when they were engaging with them what have they achieved? Absolutely nothing. It has been going on a down spiral since Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008. Russia made EU’s problems worse in Syria by aligning and helping with arms and ammunitions with the very despot that the EU was fighting against and trying to throw out.

Her lack of engagement to prevent the rule of law crisis from getting out of control is one of her greatest failures. She was not at the forefront of efforts to protect democracy and the rule of law and she allowed getting worse when she had the opportunity to engage much earlier. On the contrary, she may even have helped Orban consolidate power. She could have acted before it was too late. Orban started his illiberal policies already in 2012. That time it was only Hungary, which was deviating from the EU values. But none of the EU leaders did anything significant to deter him. Merkel could have used her powers. Instead she only acted as a temporary problem solver. When Poland also joined Hungary’s illiberal policies, it was difficult for the EU Council and other EU institutions to handle both the countries as both supported each other. Only in the last few years Article 7 procedures has been started against both these countries. During this time, Merkel hardly took a hard stand on Hungary and she almost always went soft on Hungary not to make her fellow EPP leader more distant from cooperating with the others on other issues. Some EU diplomats think that Merkel would be missed, as she was the only one capable of playing the role of a mediator between Hungary and other conflicting parties. This shows that she has been only prolonging the problems that the EU has had by not taking a strong stand against the single most problematic country Hungary. Orban saw this strategy as a sign of weakness and exploited it accordingly. With these autocrats pushing the rule-of-law crisis of the European project to the extreme, Merkel’s conflict averse approach is ineffective and allows it to worsen. Attempting to please both sides of the divide is detrimental to the European project. This is the legacy she is leaving behind in her EU policy arena.

I would expect the incoming German chancellor to be more or less the same as Merkel. The possible chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz would to a larger degree follow similar policies as Merkel did. As expected by a large proportion of people, if a possible traffic-light coalition government takes office, they would make a considerable difference to the Merkel legacy mainly because of his coalition partners the Greens and the FDP. Although both these parties have very opposite views on certain policy agendas, both importantly come up with fresh ideas and are forward looking how much ever they differed from each other. It would be interesting to see the new government’s Russia policy as Scholz of the SPD would be even friendlier towards Russia as SPD are generally pro-Russia. But I would expect their coalition partners FDP and the Green party (and potentially the foreign minister would be from the Green party) to balance that soft approach by a much more hard-line policy towards Russia and China. In dealing with the rule-of-law crisis, reinvigorating the EU and in making the EU play a strong role globally, the expectation is that the new government would be much more ambitious and forthcoming. Better times are ahead!  

Making sense of AUKUS

The US administration is very serious and focussed on countering China and makes sure that the Indo-Pacific is not dominated by China. Besides the Quad, this new grouping AUKUS makes sense from the American point of view as it partners with the UK and Australia. Whatever said and done of the UK – their misgivings on Brexit and the Johnson government – they are a nuclear power and their foreign policy is dynamic, bold and decisive unlike the EU. France, the biggest foreign policy player within the EU certainly is ambitious, has bigger vision, the capability and is dynamic. But the problem ironically with France is that it wants to project its foreign policy through the EU, which is laudable but the EU is at best stuttering when it comes to foreign policy decision making with consensus. Not everyone is in the same page almost all the time in almost all the foreign policy issues. It is difficult to have the EU as a partner in multilateral foreign policy / strategic policies. When it comes to relationship with China, it has a soft approach compared to the US or Australia or Japan not to be too confrontational. The US naturally cannot rely on the EU. So it tended to look outside their traditional ally, the EU.

But it’s a mystery why it didn’t include France in its grouping. It is a nuclear power, already a considerable power in the Indo-Pacific. Maybe it thought that France wouldn’t play along with the other grouping nations wherever it diverged from the EU’s foreign policy path.

However, strategic and understandable this grouping AUKUS is, the US should have handled it much better. It should have discussed about this option with the EU in detail and made clear that in any case they would go ahead with willing strategic partners. That would have made a huge difference. The way it did now is indeed a betrayal, a backstabbing. The same goes for Australia unilaterally cancelling the French submarine order and going with a US one for whatever good reasons they might have.

In a way the Biden administration seems to be worse than the Trump administration. With Trump, you don’t have any hope for a discussion, for alliances, for multilateralism, to respect contracts, partnerships, and international treaties. So when he does exactly that, it is not a surprise. But with Biden, you have high hopes that multilateralism is back, allies would be respected, understood and taken into consideration before any major multilateral decision. But when that doesn’t happen – first in the Afghanistan withdrawal and now AUKUS, questions would be raised, as how far the US can be trusted. It is nothing short of backstabbing, betrayal and taken for a fool.

Crudely put, personally, I feel glad that these things are happening. Now the EU has no excuses to prolong in delaying their ‘strategic autonomy’ path. They have to be more serious, ambitious and dynamic in coming up with a strategic autonomy path. This has already been the case since the Obama administration, when it shifted its priorities to Asia from Europe. A decade later, it has become worse and the case for strategic autonomy has increased multi-fold. Now along with strategic autonomy, strategic sovereignty also needs to be established. When every nation in the world has become inward looking and making their nation first in any foreign policy decisions, the EU needs to rethink and make EU interest its priority. First step that they have to do is to bring every member states to agree to the idea and the need for its urgency and scope. It is not an impossible task as it is widely portrayed to be. Two factors hinder that ambition. Some member-states rely and trust more on transatlantic support than the EU and secondly the fear that the EU path would duplicate NATO. Both are legitimate causes for fear from these member-states. The EU has to take the Russia threat much more seriously and address it vigorously enough to satisfy Poland and the Baltic countries. The EU led by Germany and France has been feeble in their support so far in addressing these threats from Russia towards these member-states. Unless that changes dramatically, nothing is going to change these member-states perceptions towards the EU as a serious player capable of replacing transatlantic support. Secondly the wavering nations must be clearly convinced that developing the EU capabilities doesn’t mean duplicating NATO and it only strengthens the EU side and it is more of a pooling of all member-state resources to a common EU capability capable of acting decisively. But I’m not too hopeful that we will see developments towards EU strategic autonomy any time soon.

US overshadows the EU

Now that Biden is back, it is inevitable that the US will overshadow the EU in its multilateral efforts. The narrative would be dominated by the US how much ever they are late to the party. So much that last month in one press meet, Macron was seen increasingly exasperated with comparisons to the Biden administration. He repeatedly insisted to reporters that it is the U.S. playing catch-up on climate and on vaccine solidarity, which is true. 

During the Trump years, the EU was somewhat trying to uphold multilateralism but without any firm support. It was the leader in the fight against climate change and has been for the last few decades but only when the US joins the fight it becomes much more global and taken seriously. The US returns to the Paris agreement after few years and leads a global leaders summit in April to reaffirm the climate change commitments globally and thereby takes global leadership. Similarly in EUs fight against the rule-of-law, human rights violations, only with the support of the US, it gets teeth.

The EU was the leading power in establishing the COVAX facility along with WHO, the EU was the one which called for all restrictions in vaccine manufacturing supply chain to be eased and the EU was the one which already donated 250 million vaccines globally, half of what it produced, the highest in the world. The US and the UK haven’t donated any vaccines so far. But more than these deeds, what is widely known in the world is, EU is fighting for vaccines with the UK and it blocked exports of vaccines to the UK and Australia. The EU is known to be a bad communicator and added to that bad press and bias against non-English countries in the global media worsens its image. Now with the US unilaterally suspending vaccine manufacturing patent temporarily – a welcome move but it is largely symbolic, complicated, and not an immediate solution – and announcing 500 million vaccines to be donated globally by the year-end, it has taken all the credit and the image as the global savior from the EU.

The EU has missed out in leading a global effort in increasing the vaccine donations and in making the climate change financing to the developing countries, a reality during the recent G7 summit. The EU has a global responsibility and it needs to provide leadership role in the above two areas soon.

The Transatlantic closeness is back but should the EU feel contended about it

So after a week of close camaraderie between the traditional allies – the EU and the US – in the G7, the NATO summit, the EU – US summit, one can confidently say that the transatlantic relationship is back.  

They seem to be so much in love with each other that it is better to have a realistic look at their relationship. The EU and the US always had differences and it started to grow wider in the last two decades. But they always were close allies, cooperated in the multilateral institutions, consulted often in foreign policy issues, had mutual respect for each other, realize that the other is their biggest ally and there was constant engagement. But the overall relationship varied between the different US administrations, obviously. 

Relationship with the Clinton administration was the closest in the last few decades where both their interests more or less aligned and Clinton got along very well with all the major European leaders. Marginal shift started during the Bush administration with its adventurous war in Iraq splitting Europe into Old Europe and New Europe. Obama was less a transatlanticist and he started shifting the focus from the EU to Asia. No doubt the Asia is becoming more and more important. But he made it at the cost of the EU and didn’t balance his interests. Foreign policy was never his forte and even less to talk about his foreign policy priorities aligning with the EU. Despite his red lines being violated in Syria, he did nothing. There was not much appetite from the US to get involved in another country. They have been stretched out already way beyond their means in Afghanistan and Iraq and both the stays becoming increasingly unpopular domestically. Nevertheless it would be construed as his foreign policy failure and it is one of the major reasons the Middle East is in this deep mess. The EU with no hard power and also not using its soft power sufficiently to rebuild Libya, Egypt and Tunisia failed badly without the US support which it is used to falling back on. The resultant is unstable governments in those countries and massive migrant problem that the EU is facing now. Relationship with the Trump administration was defined by not just having different views on almost every other issue but most often US went ahead unilaterally. He not only did not treat the EU as allies but also openly rebuked them and disrespected its leaders. 

Now with Biden, the relationship is back to normal at least in terms of cordiality, multilateralism, process, trust, mutual respect, nice words for each other, willingness to cooperate but still fundamental differences remain. There was a start, at least, in various issues between them and this time it doesn’t seems to be just rhetoric. There seems to be a lot of energy, commitments and sincerity from both the sides. For all purposes it seemed that the transatlantic relationship reset was full fledged. The EU also needs to make maximum use of Biden in office, the most EU friendly President since Bill Clinton and make extra effort to find common ground.  

State aid to Aircraft makers: It would have been too ambitious to expect that they would resolve the dispute, which lasted for 17 years in just 3 months. There have been billions of euros of punitive tariffs imposed on either side. But now they have agreed for a moratorium for 5 years with no punitive tariffs slashed on the other. In this period a Trade council would monitor compliance on the state aid given by either side and define what sort of subsidies can be allowed. This is a good start despite criticism that this is not enough. The EU made a positive gesture in May by holding off its retaliatory tariffs on US products to try to resolve this longstanding dispute between the allies. Some criticize that the truce is only for five years, but the fact that they have a mechanism to resolve that in the form of the Trade council and the threat of China also getting into aircraft manufacturing would make these two to settle their differences much more amicably. 

Tariffs on Steel & Aluminium: The US still maintains the tariff despite the EU postponing its retaliatory tariffs on them giving them more time to remove the tariff barrier. Biden did agree that the EU is not a national security threat to the US, the precise reason with which the original tariffs were imposed by the Trump administration. When asked about the tariffs, Biden had asked for some more time, as it has been only 4 months since he took office. It is expected that the tariffs would be slashed and both would jointly fight against global excess steel production capacity.

Trade and Technology Council: This council would deliberate on what subsidies are allowed for the aircraft makers, steel tariffs and sort out other issues concerning trade between the two. Biden also proposed that this model could also be used to challenges posed by China’s economic model. This council would also set global standards on technological developments and includes export screening to check China’s digital ambitions worldwide. Certainly a good idea to launch this council but optimism must be tempered in global standard setting as traditionally the EU tends to have a more regulatory heavy approach than the US would be willing to go. The US prefers largely to leave it to the private players with light touch regulation. Nevertheless it is better to take the lead and not to leave it to authoritarian states like China, which is fast becoming a leading technology power. The EU’s competition policy in recent times has been criticized by the US although the US is also deliberating itself on how to tax the tech giants fairly. The EU also has taken a lead in coming up with its Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. The former would regulate online hate speech and disinformation, which would be a good basis for the EU and the US to cooperate. But with the Digital Markets Act, the EU has a lot of convincing to do with the US and to assure that it is not solely targeted against its Tech giants. 

Data transfer agreement: After the short-lived EU – US Privacy Shield agreement on transatlantic data transfers was quashed by the ECJ in 2019. It has disrupted most of the companies that rely on the agreement amounting to billions of euros in digital trade. There needs to be a new data protection mechanism across the border soon. The EU is still waiting to hear from the US that how it’s citizen’s data would be protected in the US from its security agencies without judicial oversight. Here again, it is not sure how the US would balance its surveillance with EU citizen’s privacy rights. This is not going to be settled soon and easily. 

Tax on Digital Giants: France, Austria, Spain and Italy have already imposed tax on the global technology giants, which the US is not happy about it. Although the OECD is trying for a tax on the tech giants among the OECD countries since last year and the US has proposed the global corporate minimum tax which would also include them, it is not happy that these countries have preempted that potential agreement and went ahead causing a comparative disadvantage them. The sooner the EU brings the US to its fold, the better. 

Global Corporate minimum tax: Both the EU and the US are largely on the same page although few EU member states privately are unhappy about losing their competitive edge. If an agreement is found within the G20, it will be a major leadership initiative of the US supported by the EU, Canada and Japan.  

Carbon border adjustment mechanism: The US doesn’t have an emission trading schemes similar to the EU and will have considerable opposition in the Congress in establishing one. It is still unsure how the US plans to meet its emission reductions except relying too heavily on the private sector besides individual states implementing rigorous regulatory mechanism. The US has always been a laggard in reducing carbon emissions not just during the Trump administration. The EU’s options are limited as well to achieve their high emission reduction ambition; it needs to stop carbon leakage and imposing carbon border tax seems to be their best option. The EU wouldn’t be in a position to postpone introducing the carbon border levy for too long.  

Climate Change action plans: There is quite a bit of divergence between the two. First of all, the US reliance on shale gas is huge and increasing exponentially. As it is available in enormous quantity and it is cheap, the US would like to rely on them for the near future. But it is not exactly a climate friendly energy and the EU’s new taxonomy for sustainable investments doesn’t consider gas as clean energy. With levels of progress and ambition in adoption of renewable energy varying considerably and the EU’s taxonomy would make it difficult to jointly design a global regulatory framework for sustainable finance. 

Brexit: The Biden administration, not being a supporter of Brexit unlike the Trump administration is a big relief to the EU. Biden being an Irish-American puts the Good Friday agreement all the more important. The EU would seem to have an edge in the US support in Brexit related conflicts with the UK.

Russia: For a long time, the EU was trying for a complicated balance with Russia, their neighbor, their main adversary and their main collaborator in major international issues. It cannot go too harsh on them for Russia’s adventures, as it needs Russia’s support in other international issues. But honestly, the EU’s policy towards Russia is a miserable failure and the major reason for that is the soft approach by its leading powers Germany and France repeatedly underestimating the danger from Russia. Dominated by them whose concern were only cooperation from Russia in geo-political issues. These two countries failed to listen to the Baltic countries, Poland, Czech Republic, who know about Russia much better than the others, in having a realistic policy towards Russia, a policy that it understands. Adding to the repeated criticism of EU’s Russia policy by the Lithuanians and the Polish, the EU Commissioner from Czech Republic, Vera Jourova claimed that she is sick of hearing EU officials and diplomats from the Western European countries that they know better how to handle Russia than those from the former Iron curtain states whom they termed as Russophobes. As it stands now, Russia treats the EU with disdain and Putin knows that the EU is not only toothless but also spineless. The EU either doesn’t sufficiently realise that or it shows its helplessness. Now that the US is firmly together with the EU, it could make things a bit less difficult for the EU to deal with Russia. The EU could do better with the support of the US to harden its policy against Russia.  

China: The EU is trying for a difficult balance between its foreign policy priorities and trade priorities with China. But as China becomes more belligerent, the EU is also reacting to it by becoming more restrictive to China in terms of screening investments in the EU, making its displeasure of a lack of level playing field in China a lot more louder, diverting its supply chain mechanism away from China, targeting China’s human rights failure much more strongly than ever. The EU ditched a long negotiated Investment treaty with China (which to China’s credit has compromised quite a lot on giving way to a comparatively more level playing field to European companies in China) due to counter sanctions from the Chinese on EU’s sanctions (first in more than 30 years) on human rights violations in China. This is not a small shift from the EU side. So all these actions would make it a better partner to the US in dealing with its principal adversary much more effectively. Although this sentiment is not reflected that positively during the NATO summit, the statements made by France and Germany shouldn’t be taken too seriously as a deviation from the US. It is important to remember that the EU and China are each other’s biggest trade partners much more than the US. It is just that the EU wants it to be more balanced between trade and HR issues and not to be too antagonistic towards China and would want to have an open channel of communication with China to get their support in fighting against climate change and in other geo-political issues not least in reforming the WTO and WHO. This slight divergences would only have a better effect in making US line towards China a bit more nuanced softened by the EU and the EU line a bit more hardened with the support of the US.  

WTO: After Trump disregarded the WTO and made it irrelevant, the Biden administration is back supporting the WTO but hasn’t yet revoked it’s blocking of the dispute resolution mechanism and is yet to fill the vacancies from its side. The EU also has to overcome its establishment of an alternate structure in WTO along with China, Canada and others to by pass the US when Trump discarded the WTO. It’s interesting that it needs WTO reformed now along with the Biden administration to counter China but it went ahead with China to establish an alternate structure earlier to counter Trump’s policies. Partners become adversaries and it gets reversed again. 

The talk about the EU establishing a strategic autonomy already started during the Obama years and it made all the more sense during the Trump years. Now, as the relationship becomes normal and there is more and more cooperation and a lot gets achieved through multilateralism, the EU shouldn’t start becoming comfortable again falling back on its ally. It shouldn’t get back to the days where it is clubbed together with or even worse playing second fiddle to the US and lazily called as ‘West’. It should continue to focus on establishing strategic autonomy. This is not just because that it cannot expect the next President to continue to be closely aligned with the EU but as the differences widens between the allies in their priorities, the means to achieve differs and the need to go alone sometimes, it is better to be self-reliant. The EU needs to have an independent identity and not a hyphenated one. 

What is strategic autonomy? First and foremost is to use its soft power to the maximum and strengthen its hard power. This means it needs to have an independent EU military capability complementing NATO capabilities. Of course it doesn’t have to duplicate the NATO capabilities as many member states in the EU fear of. The EU and strong proponents like France should convince the other m-s that this would not duplicate NATO capabilities. There is already the EDF to support the European Defense mechanism. It makes sense to pool all the EU m-s defence capabilities together. The trans-national rapid reaction force is already there and the importance is reinforced recently although this capability has never been used before. 

There is a common saying that there are things that the EU does well such as trade negotiations, consumer protection and setting global standards and then there are things that the EU struggles with such as foreign policy. All EU’s failure on foreign policy cannot be blamed on the fact that it lacks majority decision making among the EU member states. The EU needs to be bold, decisive, think long term in its foreign policy. There needs to be constant deliberations, which have been missing. 

The EU introduced an investment screening mechanism to screen investors from countries, which do not reciprocate its open procurement policy. This is mainly to deter investors from China and the US where Biden still has some ‘Buy American’ policies favouring domestic companies in public procurement. So it is a good sign that the EU is aware and quick to come up with a safeguard measure. 

The EU needs to chart its own strategic course. Have a long term foreign policy goals towards every country in the Middle East, Russia and China as these three should be its priority and try to align as much as possible with the US. But wherever its long term goals necessitates itself to take action and if the US is not convinced about it or not willing to go along with the EU, the EU should be prepared and be capable enough to go on its own. It should also be careful that it doesn’t become a mere instrument for the US foreign policy agenda. This should be the aim of its strategic autonomy. 

From an EU Hero to EU betrayer

Emmanuel Macron won an election 2 years ago with a strong pro-EU platform and has been a vociferous Europhile for the past 2 years. His European vision was immensely laudable and he had the courage to push ahead with it but he faced many hurdles from his closest ally – the Germans.

But since this European election, he has been openly projecting French interest through EU. Rather than having a Commission President from a small country that is absolutely neutral, someone like Margrethe Vestager, he chose Von der Leyen (who importantly happens to be a Francophone) against the wishes of the European Parliament. Her candidacy means its advantage France and Germany.

He has not been good with choosing candidates in the last few months. Besides Von der Leyen, his choice for the leader of the Renew Europe in the European Parliament Nathalie Loiseau ended in a fiasco. His choice for the European Commissioner Sylvia Goulard was rejected by the European Parliament. Despite many excellent candidates for the ECB and IMF, his choices weren’t the best ones.

Besides all these, the worst crime he did was betrayal today. He made the EU, a betrayer.  For a long time Macedonia was waiting to start accession to the EU. It became a candidate country in 2005. It was ready in every sense except that Greece repeatedly voted against opening accession talks because Greece couldn’t accept another country having the name of one of the regions within Greece. In 2018, thanks to Alexis Tsipras, the then Greek PM and Zoran Zaev, the PM of North Macedonia signed the Prespes agreement in changing its name to North Macedonia. Zoran Zaev got ratified in the Parliament despite huge opposition from the opposition parties and few Russia-friendly parties. But the incentive to join the EU was the clincher to get it passed it in the Parliament. The whole Balkan region has huge trust for the EU and one day wants to join the EU. The Balkan people trust the EU more than its own leaders and parliament. In return the EU and its member states often don’t engage enough with the Balkans. Last year once North Macedonia joined NATO, there was a belated promise that the EU would agree to start accession talks the following year June. This year in June, Germany asked for a 4 months delay for technical reasons citing Parliamentary ratification needed time.

Last week when all is set to open the accession talks, the French threw a bomb all of a sudden saying they refuse to agree to start the accession talks. They claimed that the EU has plenty of problems as it is and this is not the time to expand (There’s no mention of what needs to be done to allow expansion). This rejection is despite the green signal given by the European Commission. Their excuse is a lame one and a standard French excuse. The French generally prioritises internal reforms over expansion. Starting the accession talks is not the same as joining the EU. It would take several years to join the EU after starting the accession talks. When the lame-duck Merkel pleaded for at least starting the talks, still the French refused. Despite many leaders warning the consequences, the French were adamant in refusing to agree and so the accession talks were rejected 27 against one. This would constitute to be a historical blunder, a monumental blunder. I don’t know whether the French realises the consequences. This is a massive betrayal. I would say a bigger betrayal than what the US did to the Kurds. And this French betrayal would constitute as a EU betrayal to the Balkans and it would be long lasting. EU loses leverage in Balkans with this rejection. What does this convey to the people of North Macedonia who made all the sacrifices and was looking towards a better future? Why should Serbia and Kosovo listen to the EU anymore? And all this in a region where Russia and China are competing for influence. Forget the Balkans, this betrayal would echo everywhere. Why should anyone listen or trust the EU if they are not going to honour promises in their own backyard?

Move away the Orbans and Kaczynskis, the most dreadful leader of the EU at the moment is Monsieur Macron, who has just made the worst betrayal the EU has ever done, who has just killed a million dreams, who has lost respect from a millions of people. It’s dreary to think this arrogant leader is the most powerful leader in the EU at the moment and what more catastrophes are awaiting. The Russians must be having a hearty laugh!

Disappointed with the top jobs package

So after 5 weeks after the election results, the EU council came out with the names for the top 5 EU jobs package. At least this time, I expected they would chose the candidates as Europeans and not as national leaders with hidden agendas and chose candidates who are best suited for the job profile and not as a compromise candidate. Two of the main reasons for this optimism was among the EU Council, there’s one leader who is a staunch European and very vocal about it – Emmanuel Macron and the second, was the names floating around for each job profile. And yet they didn’t rise to the occasion as Europeans and remained as national leaders with petty hidden agendas and selfish interests. It was the same old compromises and of all the leaders, was disappointed with Macron, the most. Again my expectations let me down.

 According to me, the two best candidates for the European Commission President were Margrethe Vestager and Michel Barnier. Margrethe Vestager, whose virtues are well known, would be the best candidate – who is not a typical politician, a self made leader, who doesn’t bows to any national interest, who is very dynamic and who takes a no nonsense approach and absolutely credible and a leader who can bring the EU institutions closer to the people. Michel Barnier who is the candidate with the best qualifications – long ministerial experience, two terms as a high profile Commissioner and now the Brexit Coordinator where he had kept the whole of the EU unified and has got a spectacular record to show for his candidature. And these two names were floating around as options for the President and Vestager was also a Spitzen candidate.

 Speaking of Spitzenkandidaten, it is still not a perfect system. First of all the leaders contesting the party spitzenkandidaten is not vetted by the member states in the beginning. There’s no European demo to speak of in the European election. The EPP candidate Manfred Weber isn’t known to people outside Germany. People who are voting for EPP parties in other member states vote according to their own party preferences and not because of Weber. It worked in 2014 because there was Jean Claude Juncker who was indeed the best candidate that time across parties and across member states and the EPP and S&D had a broad majority between them but that is not the case this time.

Besides that, Weber is not popular outside EPP circles and outside Bavaria; not even in the rest of Germany. His track record as EPP president is nothing great to talk about. He talks of bringing the European Parliament closer to the people but when it comes to transparency issues, he advocates secret ballot ironically to decide on transparency issues in the EP. He doesn’t have executive experience as well. Weber would probably be one of the worst candidates for the Commission President.

Well as much as Weber and Timmermans options were explored, it’s strange that the Vestager option wasn’t explored to the maximum extent and surprised that the liberal party leaders didn’t push that option.

 The true winners of this European Parliamentary election are the Greens, who have increased their vote share dramatically across Europe. The Liberals can also be said as a winner as they have also performed uniformly well across Europe. The two main losers of this election are the EPP & S&D despite being the two largest parties but having shrunk dramatically. They no longer hold the control of the Parliament between them. They would need the support of both the Liberals and the Greens to have a wide pro-EU majority. In effect, the Parliament President should go to the Greens. It’s a pity that they don’t have any representation in the EU Council to push their names. If the stated ambition is to bring the EU institutions closer to the people, there’s no better party than the Greens to do it. With a Green member as a Parliament President, like Ska Keller, it would be great for European democracy and for bringing the only directly elected chamber much closer to the people. They have better ideas to reach out to the people and are definitely more credible than the other parties in terms of integrity and transparency. Moreover, it’s only the Greens besides the far-right parties who are able to engage with the citizens much more closely.

It’s ridiculous that Tusk asks for Greens cooperation now to get Von der Leyen as the Commission President having ignored them for the past few weeks and not considering them for any posts or in any power sharing agreements.

The European High Representative for Foreign Affairs & Security Policy needs a high profile person and Josep Borrell fits the position perfectly with his wide experience both in Foreign affairs and in European affairs.

To have a geographical balance and a balance in policy positions, the European Council President should come from the Central and Eastern part of the EU and should be a Russophobe. The ideal choice would have been Dalia Grybauskaite. Charles Michel, a not-so-bad candidate again hails from Belgium, which makes it as a general case as the compromise seeking Belgian PMs are the best-suited persons for the European Council President. The position shouldn’t be reduced to brokering solutions. Often the European Council President along with the Commission President represents the EU in summits and in external relations. You need statesmanlike persons with strong reputations. Again the member state leaders don’t want anyone to overpower them. They want meek candidates just to broker deals!

The ECB President should have gone to either Francois Villeroy de Galhau or Benoit Coeure. Both would mean a continuity of the current Draghi policies. The other candidates – from Germany and Finland are hawkish enough to disrupt the current successful course of the monetary policies. Ideally, this position should remain with an economist and not to a politician.

Ideally, Margrethe Vestager should have got the European Commission President, Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania, the European Council President, Josep Borrell, the High Representative (who eventually got it), Ska Keller, the European Parliament President and the ECB President to Francois Villeroy de Galhau or Benoit Coeure.

But what Macron did was something else. He wanted to get rid of Weber. Mindful of Germany rejecting a French Commission President instead of a German one, suggested another German candidate for Commission President who is acceptable to him and thought would also be acceptable for everyone and couldn’t be rejected by Germany. By giving the EU HR position to a Spanish, he won the support of the biggest leader from the S&D. By giving another francophone Charles Michel the EU Council leadership, he got the Renew Europe on their side as well. To get the ECB position for the French, he proposed Christine Lagarde over two other better-qualified candidates from his own country. Just to get a French candidate in and to have the rest of the candidates Francophones, he came up with this package, which smacks of petty national politics. Of all the leaders, Macron is the one who talks about rising up to the occasion as Europeans and he ended up as the pettiest minded national politician in the summit.

A not so well admired minister from the most dominant member state to become the Commission president is not the best pick. So Von der Leyen got the candidacy more so because she is a woman, a francophone and a German! How can she be trusted to be impartial; act for the interest of the Union as a whole rather than taking orders from the two biggest member states, when she got the job thanks to the French. She might end up as a very fine Commission President and if this happens, would be very glad for it but nevertheless the way she got this position is deplorable!

I’m back after a hiatus

Due to various other commitments, couldn’t write for the last few years. But now I’m back after a 3 years hiatus. I hope hereafter I’ll be contributing to this blog regularly.

I couldn’t resist writing about my disappointment with the top jobs package that the EU Council came up with.

Thoughts on Brexit

The unexpected vote to leave the EU was a surprise for the British more than anyone else and there was unnecessary panic in the rest of the world, comments ranging from end of the EU to end of theWestern civilisation to end of globalisation and so on. The reality would be nothing but a slight change in the EU functioning and that’s it. But it’s not going to be the same for the Britain. This would be disastrous for a long time and have to pay a huge cost for getting back the so-called ‘sovereignty’ and this is not going to solve the migration problem that the voters were thinking it would solve. The leave voters haven’t realized the consequences of leaving, re-inforced by the fact that the British were Googling what the EU is, well hours after voting to leave it.

Let’s go back a few decades back. There was talk about Brexit during the early 1990s during the Major government, which led to the fall o this government. During Labour’s regime from 1997 to 2010, there was not any talk about Brexit. Tony Blair for all his faults, know how the EU works, knows how to get things done. He was in the forefront of deciding major issues and deciding the Commission President in 1999 and in 2004. He was the main one behind the decision to choose Romano Prodi in 1999 and Jose Manuel Barroso in 2004. He always made sure that Britain remains in the core of the EU and was trying his best to get best deals for the UK and also standing up for the EU within the UK. For all his woes, he showed strong leadership in Britain.

It was only after Tories under David Cameron came to power in 2010, the talk about Brexit arose again. In the last 6 years, he has not only been on the sidelines in the EU Council but also making it as awkward as possible. He will now have a legacy where he has dismantled the United Kingdom. Here is a Prime Minister, who himself doesn’t understands how the EU works and he doesn’t seems to be learning as well as seen in the recent debates. He has been one of the weakest leaders, Britain has seen in the last century. In the last few years, to wean away votes from the UKIP, he started using the same language rather than showing leadership in rebutting their false claims about the EU. Consistently the UKIP, the right-wing media and the Conservative backbenchers were coming out with accusations against the EU most of which are factually incorrect. The Cameron government again instead of showing leadership in rebutting these false claims, was playing the same tune. The main contention of EU migrants abusing the welfare benefits has been found to be wrong in many studies but the Cameron government continued to say the same thing to get a favourable deal from the EU and then continued with the same misinformed argument. So you have one Prime Minister who has been mildly Eurosceptic himself, cribbing about the EU all the time, saying things like the UK is better off without the EU for 6 years and then suddenly after the renegotiation deal in February this year, talks about the virtues of being in the EU. What credibility will he have to lead the debate?

On top of this, his government’s recent budget in March, made big cuts to the welfare to go with the severe austerity measures in the last 6 years which affects the have-nots more, the bulk whom voted for Brexit.

With Cameron not having any credibility, the onus was on the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. I was surprised that his campaign was so lackluster. There was not half the passion and conviction that he had when he was campaigning for the Labour leadership last year. He owes a big responsibility for this result. The Labour heartland didn’t deliver the necessary votes for Remain. Often he was not convincing enough despite believing strongly to remain in the EU.

The good thing would be that Scotland would get another chance for self-determination and come back to the EU fold.

For a long time Britain was in the European union but didn’t feel completely part of it, demanding special treatment, constant bickering and simultaneously applying the brakes now and then to further European integration. So this result is in a way good and I personally think this would be a good kick in the ass for the British.

The EU should not panic, over react, over-intrepret the results and go back on integration, unraveling the EU. On the contrary, this is a good opportunity to move ahead with more integration now that the major thorn in the integration process – Britain is no longer there to obstruct. There is a good opportunity to move ahead in several areas like fiscal union, economic and monetary union, financial regulation, security and defence measures – one major area among them could be forming the much-needed EU army with common procurement saving huge money on the member states budget.

With Brexit, many industry headquarters would move away from London to the EU and the countries benefitting from that relocation would be Germany and the Benelux countries. London would remain a global financial centre but its weightage will obviously come down. The UK had earlier got several concessions for its finance sector from the EU directives and now that concessions would be removed which would make a lot more transitions of investment, finance capital, and the bulk of the sector to move to the EU possibly to Frankfurt, which would be the new financial hub. The skilled labour, which used to migrate to the UK would remain within the EU.

It would be ironical that after Brexit, the Brits would realize their folly and see how much being inside the EU was beneficial to them and the rest of the EU would watch that which would make them understand the EU better and make it more popular.

The younger generation in Britain is going to pay for this Brexit caused predominantly by the privileged older generation. This fact would give hope that in the near future there would be another referendum where a reformed, self-realised, understanding Britain would vote to join back the EU. I reckon this would happen within a decade.