An end to a marriage of convenience?

Whatever the colour of its next government, the UK will find the old approach to the EU will no longer work.

To the continental gut, the menu was not exactly appetising. A Conservative party that promised to repatriate EU powers? A Liberal Democrat party that supported an eventual referendum on the UK’s EU membership? A possible coalition government that could trigger political and financial instability?

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British voters may yet get all three. The result will feed the Anglo-scepticism felt in many capitals long subjected to the UK’s Euroscepticism.

Even before the election, many in Berlin, for example, viewed the travails of the UK’s commissioner, Catherine Ashton, somehow as proof of the hubris of the UK’s global ambitions. ‘Brit-bashing’ in economic and financial discussions has become increasingly normal. Forms of European governance rightly or wrongly associated with the UK – opt-outs, the open method of co-ordinating member states’ positions, the enhanced role of impact assessments – are gleefully written off as self-defeating for the UK.

With the UK humbled politically and economically, commentators in Berlin have rediscovered the meaning of schadenfreude. They are just itching for the new British government to ‘exercise leadership in Europe’, so they can point out the gulf between the country’s aspirations and its real clout. With EU budgetary and agricultural reform pending, they may soon have their chance.

For London, this is the comeuppance for years of diplomatic assertiveness. Negotiators have often complained about British ‘arrogance’. It is not just the way UK leaders have lectured their partners. The whole slick machinery of Whitehall has exuded unreflective self-assurance about the UK’s value to the EU.

Of course, frustration with the UK is nothing new. Its arm’s-length approach to Europe, its sense of exceptionalism, has long strained nerves. But other member states have traditionally been quick to forgive. The reason was simple – in the past, there was something approaching a marriage of convenience.

The assessment of British diplomats is uniform: if we did not exist, the others would have to invent us. Almost every British diplomat can relate episodes when even the more pro-European states felt able to oppose European proposals once the UK had led the way – or when there was horror in summits or ministerial meetings as the UK failed to express an opposition that others had counted on. The UK does not mind being singled out as exceptional in the way that other, more pro-European states do. It is ready to throw its weight about and for other states to shelter behind it.

The Treaty of Lisbon, however, is straining this marriage. The treaty pins political responsibility for the formulation and realisation of the EU’s agenda more firmly upon the member governments, at the expense of the European Commission. They must all be constructive.

A new British government of any political stripe will therefore have found itself in an unenviable position. When it chooses to play a blocking role, the new government will now strain, rather than soothe, relations with other capitals.

Moreover, a new government – especially one that proves hostile to many elements of European co-operation – will lack the clout to exercise the kind of constructive leadership to which past governments have aspired.

Since the more intergovernmental elements of the Lisbon treaty are referred to as an ‘Anglicisation’ of the EU’s political system, a new, weak, disliked British government could well find itself being made the scapegoat for the general failures of governments to set out an agenda for the Union.

Previous British governments have profited from their arm’s-length relationship with the EU. Any sign of exceptionalism from this government may become a liability for the UK.

Roderick Parkes is the head of the Brussels office of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.