30/09/2017
Instead of Mrs May making the running at Tallinn, it seems that Jean-Claude Juncker has taken over that role, dumping our Prime Minister in it, good and proper with comments that leave her no place to go.
Referring to the just completed round four of the Brexit negotiations and the chance of moving on to trade talks,
in an impromptu press comment, he declared that, "By the end of October we will not have sufficient progress", echoing M. Barnier's closing press conference in Brussels.
Even that, however, wasn't enough for the Commission President. To his unscripted comment, he volunteered the additional observation â to the evident delight of the press corps - that: "I am saying that that there will be no sufficient progress from now until October unless miracles would happen".
A generous interpretation of this intervention could have it that M. Juncker is paving the way for some "miracle" headlines in a couple of weeks, when the fifth round starts, but I rather suspect not. Only the truly self-delusional could think that the three Phase One issues are suddenly going to be resolved. Water into wine would be a mere party trick by comparison.
Nor was Juncker on his own. Mrs May's host for the day, President Grybauskaite of Lithuania,
also added her ha'pennorth, indulging in a degree a understatement which seems to be catching amongst the "colleagues". The negotiations, she said, were a "little bit behind the schedule", although she gave a diplomatic nod to the UK, adding that the May speech had been "one step forward".
Despite that, Grybauskaite clearly appreciated that time was running out and thus suggested that "probably we are already facing the need for a transitional or additional period for Brexit". Carefully, she stated: "We need to find a joint solution", a statement of the obvious but still necessary.
Faint praise came from
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar who welcomed the "better vibes" coming from Brexit talks but warned: "I think it's still very evident that there's more work to be done". "We're not yet at the stage that we can say that sufficient progress has been made to allow us to talk about the new relationship and trade", he added, then concluding that: "I don't think we'll be able to make that call until much later in the month".
All of this rather spoiled a carefully orchestrated meeting between Mrs May and Angela Merkel, which had London reporting that the German chancellor had welcomed the "good progress" made in the fourth round.
Even that was spoiled by Merkel herself who spoke directly to the press, telling them that the Commission would recommend whether the talks should move on to discussing trade and related matters. If she had any intention of taking control of the agenda, she gave no sign of it here, indicating that she was quite happy to let the Commission make the running.
Overall, though, one gets the impression, especially from
the German press that Brexit is so far down the batting order as to be invisible.
Macron is lining himself up to be saviour of Europe in the post-Brexit world, the Commission has been churning out yards of material on the digital market under the cover of an
upbeat speech from Juncker, and even Donald Tusk is
getting in on the act.
In his closing remarks after the Tallinn summit, he spoke in glowing terms of the "digital revolution" and promised to present a "very concrete working plan" for the leaders, in what he called the "Leaders Agenda 2017-18". We're all familiar with the affinity that the "colleagues" have for concrete, but "very concrete" plans takes this love affair into a new dimension.
Tellingly, the UK and Brexit didn't get a look in as Tusk pledged to progress the launch of the permanent defence cooperation by the end of 2017, a Euro Summit in December to further deepen the Economic and Monetary Union, with a special focus on the completion of the Banking Union, and a Western Balkans' Summit during the Bulgarian presidency in the EU.
Tusk promised to do everything in his power to keep the unity of the EU (not "Europe" â he actually used the term EU). And he would "concentrate on finding real solutions to real problems of our citizens, who are concerned about
security, migration or unemployment". Finally, he said, "we will all make sure that Europe is making progress".
More than ever, this underlines the growing isolation the UK is developing. Had she not been preoccupied with Brexit, the digital market is something Mrs May could usefully have devoted some time to pursuing.
Belatedly, the EU is being
forced to pay attention to the digital market, and this is set to be the next major development in the evolution of the Single Market. Brexit or no, this is something the UK really does need to work on, in cooperation with European partners, where free access to online trading is vital to our economic performance.
I've been particularly taken by the recent
Channel 4 report on the distorting effect gold movements have been having on UK trade figures â perhaps artificially inflating the volume of trade with non-EU countries. Adjusted figures put EU trade back to a 50 percent level, underlining the importance of continued trade with EU member states.
Very recently, I bought online a product direct from South Korea, listed at less than a quarter of the retail price in UK stores. It arrived a week after being ordered and, even with postage costs, it came out at just over half the cost of buying in the UK. And, under perfectly legal
de minimis provisions, the product reached me VAT and duty-free.
Multiply this thousands and hundreds of thousands of times throughout the EU, and the economies of the Member States are taking a real hit â not least as the taxman isn't getting his due.
Such areas are the meat and drink of international cooperation and, for the UK, the Tallinn digital summit seems to represent a lost opportunity, picking up on
earlier initiatives. But it could also have had an impact on the Brexit negotiations. Here was an opportunity for Mrs May to pick up on the summit theme and remind the colleagues of its importance to the UK, underlining the need for us all to continue working together.
Instead, Mrs May slunk off early, missing the end of summit press conferences and omitting to give a UK statement on the issue. Largely, as
Peter Hain observes, we are losing the art of diplomacy.
That, to an extent, is what happens when you outsource government to offshore institutions, and represents one of the major adverse effects of 44 years of political and economic integration. Our politicians no longer seem to have the grasp of the bigger picture and, with Brexit, it seems to be getting worse, not better.
We really need to up our game â right across the board â and Mrs May more so than the rest as she seems to be losing control of the Brexit agenda, to her own
foreign secretary.
As the Conservative Party conference creeps closer, she has been undermined by the European Commission President, and now by her own cabinet colleagues, suggesting that the real miracle will be that she is still prime minister by Christmas.
For that reason, we adduce that Mrs May must come up with something pretty remarkable to restore her own position within the party. Florence hasn't had the effect it might and, while Barnier let her off lightly, Juncker has put the boot in and she comes away from Tallinn with nothing of any substance.
Surely, she has something in reserve, a "killer stroke" that will have conference springing to its feet with a spontaneous ovation? If not, we may be looking at a soon-to-become ex-prime minister.
