13/01/2017
Driven by the hubris of his success in launching the Coal and Steel Community in 1950, Jean Monnet immediately set about planning what was to emerge as a proposal for a European Defence Community (EDC). This provided for a European Army, run by a European minister of defence and a council of ministers, with a common budget and arms procurement.
To create a "common political roof" over the Coal and Steel and the Defence Communities, Monnet's long-time colleague and close associate, Paul-Henri Spaak, suggested setting up a European Political Community (EPC), creating "an indissoluble supranational political community based on the union of peoples".
In September 1952, Spaak's proposal was jointly endorsed by the foreign ministers of the Six, along with the assemblies of the ECSC and the Council of Europe. The ECSC Assembly was asked to study the question of creating a "European Political Authority".
The result, from an
ad hoc committee under Spaak, was a "Draft Treaty Embodying the Statute of the European Community". This was nothing less than the first formal attempt to give Europe a constitution, the text and structure of which was remarkable similar to that considered by the Convention on the Future of Europe, fifty years later.
However, when the treaty was brought before a hostile French Assembly on 30 August 1954, it was rejected by 319 votes to 264. The triumphant majority burst into the Marseillaise. The EDC was dead. The idea of a Political Community faded into obscurity: Monnet and his supranationism had suffered a resounding defeat.
Learning the lesson from this defeat, Monnet trimmed his ambitions and focused on what was to became the 1957 Treaty of Rome, creating a "Common Market". Overt supranationalism was replaced by a stealthy, step-by-step integration, using economic means to achieve political integration, a process which became known as
engrenage, or "the Monnet method".
It was more than fifty years later, with the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty that Monnet's ambitions were anything like close to the plans for a European Political Authority, a level of integration achieved through successive treaties which included the Single European Act, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice.
Had Monnet back in 1954 insisted on continuing down the path of "full-frontal" political integration, he doubtless would have encountered exactly the same level of resistance that he so ably later overcame. The European Union would never have come into being and we would not now be considering how to leave it.
Next Tuesday, this is something Mrs May needs to be thinking about, when -
as promised she sets out her government's plans for negotiating Brexit, in a keenly awaited speech.
Already, the Prime Minister is under intense pressure to offer more details about her approach in advance of triggering Article 50, but she needs to realise that Rome was not built in a day â and neither was the Treaty of Rome. What has taken sixty years to build, on this the sixtieth anniversary of the founding treaty, cannot be undone in a mere couple of years.
If,
as we fear, she is planning to go for a "bespoke" settlement, involving a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA), the most likely outcome is that her negotiating team will run out of time and we will be left with no deal at all.
Any such plans are further complicated by the need for transitional arrangements which will bridge the gap between the end of the negotiations and the time when any FTA is expected to come into force.
Even though the pursuit of the final outcome may be forlorn, her team will still have to expend a great deal of time, effort and negotiating capital in preparing a transitional deal, which will have to be written into a succession treaty which must be approved and ratified by all current 28 members of the EU (including the UK).
This itself is a complex undertaking and, with no precedent to use for guidance, could absorb more diplomatic resources than both sides have to spare. The search for a workable transition could bring down the whole edifice.
Mrs May, therefore, needs to take a lesson from Monnet, and bide her time. She needs to ignore the siren voices, and the psychotic warbling from her own back bench, and decide to go for what is achievable in the time, rather than what is desirable but unattainable.
The point that she also needs make clear is that she is not only seeking to establish trade relations for the post-Brexit period. She is, as Pete
points out, negotiating an administrative de-merger and a framework for continued cooperation with the EU on over three hundred areas of regulatory and technical cooperation.
Most likely, the issue that will have to be settled before progress is made elsewhere is
the money. And that is going to require a level of compromise which will be completely unacceptable to the zealots. Mrs May is never going to please them, so she might just as well not even bother trying.
And while her backbench (or elements of it) can make trouble for her, if we take the Maastricht rebellion as a guide, the Right will huff and puff but, if the survival of the government is at stake, they will cave in.
Much more problematical is the prospect of an accidental Brexit. A completely unplanned break could have such a serious impact that we could see empty shelves in the supermarket, shortages of staple commodities, mass unemployment and a major run on the pound.
Given the timing of our departure, just one year before the general election, a botched Brexit is perhaps the one thing that could restore Labour's electoral fortunes under Corbyn. All the Opposition leader has to do is stand aside and let Mrs May wreck the economy â and then reap the harvest of votes as the Conservatives' reputation for economic probity is trashed.
Barring the zealots, though, no one is going to object if we are taken out of the EU by the end of March 2019, and then see a carefully managed transition to a defined end game that leaves us better off than we were before leaving.
And that is what Mrs May needs to focus on, on Tuesday. Far too much time and energy has been expending on discussing the process of leaving, while precious little resource has been given to the specifics of our final destination.
In 1940, when the people of the United Kingdom had their back against the wall, Winston Churchill promised them victory but, before getting there, he had nothing to offer but "blood, sweat and tears". As mature peoples, we can understand and respond to such a message and will do so again â even if, this time, it is more likely to be tiers than tears.
If Mrs May can offer us a worthwhile outcome, she need not worry too much about the interim period. If we have confidence that she can deliver, we will accept that this is something to work for and cannot be handed on a plate. And in Mr Monnet took 50 years or so to get us to this state, a decade or so to set the course or history right is not too much to ask.
