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E.U. Leaders Divided Over How to Respond to ‘Brexit’ Vote E.U. Leaders Divided Over How to Respond to ‘Brexit’ Vote
(about 4 hours later)
BRUSSELS — Stunned and divided by Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, leaders of the bloc’s member states converged in Brussels on Tuesday to prepare for a painful divorce, although Britain’s own political crisis made any rapid separation unlikely. BRUSSELS — Deeply shaken by Britain’s vote to quit the European Union, the bloc’s leaders met on Tuesday to confront their most urgent conundrum: how to calm the crisis in hopes it fades away, while making the British decision so painful that no other country follows.
European leaders were struggling to strike a delicate balance: leaving the door open just enough for a possible compromise with Britain, while making it clear that they would not make any further concessions to get Britain to change its mind. The leaders of what, for the moment, is still a bloc of 28 countries all agree that the European Union needs an overhaul. The two-day summit meeting that started Tuesday with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain in attendance for perhaps the last time began the long and divisive effort to rebuild the cornerstone of Europe’s peace and relative prosperity for more than 60 years.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she would use “all her strength” to prevent the European Union from drifting apart, but she emphaized that nothing legally could begin to be done to address Britain’s relations with the bloc until it triggered the legal mechanism for leaving — something that Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain has refused to do, insisting that whoever succeeds him should make that decision. Europe’s leaders also face the more immediate task of handling the tensions building over Britain’s desire to seek a divorce while stalling on a formal application.
Before leaving for Brussels, Ms. Merkel told her Parliament that Britain would want to maintain “close relations” with the European Union, but also signaled that it could not expect business as usual. They want the process to go as smoothly and as quickly as possible and to contain the economic damage, but not so painlessly for Britain as to encourage populist movements in other wavering nations to push for destabilizing referendums of their own.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany tried to thread that needle in a speech to the German Parliament Tuesday before leaving for Brussels, warning that Britain would suffer as a result of its “Brexit” vote and could not expect to enjoy the privileges of membership, like access to Europe’s single market, while sloughing off its burdens.
“Whoever wants to leave this family cannot expect to have no more obligations but to keep the privileges,” she said. “There must be and will be a noticeable difference between whether a country wants to be a member of the European Union family or not.”“Whoever wants to leave this family cannot expect to have no more obligations but to keep the privileges,” she said. “There must be and will be a noticeable difference between whether a country wants to be a member of the European Union family or not.”
Ms. Merkel quashed any idea of exploring alternative arrangements before then until Britain starts formal procedures to leave, a point she made on Monday after meeting with the leaders of France and Italy. “The talks can begin only then, and not before — either formally or informally,” she said. The shock vote last week in Britain has done more than embolden populist forces that denounce the European Union as a distant and meddling force that mainly serves elites. It has also brought to the surface deep pools of bitterness and anger left by earlier crises, notably a grinding economic slowdown and an uncontrolled influx of migrants across Europe’s open borders.
She made clear that Britain could not expect full access to the European Union’s common market without accepting its conditions, including the free movement of people. Immigration was the crux of the often ugly debate that accompanied the so-called Brexit campaign. Ms. Merkel said. Instead of dealing with just the crisis of confidence set off by the vote for Brexit, as Britain’s exit from the European bloc is called, leaders are effectively confronting all the crises of recent years at one time. Still unresolved are arguments over austerity, the German-led prescription for a financial crisis that began in Greece in 2008, and whether the European Union should be merely a free-trade zone or the locomotive of a more ambitious program of “ever closer union,” a cause enshrined in the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
President François Hollande of France was among a group of European leaders who pushed Britain to act quickly and resolve the uncertainty that has consumed the Continent. Arriving for the summit meeting, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece — whose country voted in a referendum last year to reject a financial bailout offered by Brussels only to accept even harsher terms to avoid expulsion from Europe’s common currency — described the British referendum result as a “sad wake-up call” that should force the European Union to abandon policies of austerity and “endless negotiations behind closed doors.”
“We need to begin the United Kingdom’s exit process from the European Union as quickly as possible, and then start the negotiations that will follow,” Mr. Hollande said. “I can’t imagine that a British government, whichever one it may be, would not respect the choice of its own people.” “Let us make Europe more attractive to its people,” he said. But how to do this when there is no real agreement on what the role of the European Union should be — traffic cop that merely keeps trade flowing, or full-fledged state.
Mr. Hollande said that Britain had decided to leave and that it was important for the European Union to move on. “The British have made a choice,” he told reporters. “By a large majority they decided to leave the European Union. We must draw all the conclusions, even though I regret this choice — but I want to respect it.” At the European Parliament on Tuesday, members of the assembly were united in calls for change but offered no common vision of how. “Europe needs change. But we want to improve it, not destroy it,” said Manfred Weber, a center-right ally of Ms. Merkel’s. The British vote, Mr. Weber said, “was a victory for the populists and Europe is now at a crossroads.”
He added: “We must also as Europeans draw a certain number of conclusions. A new impulse is necessary: protect our borders, invest more, turn towards youth and organize the eurozone in a more democratic way, so that it may also harmonize fiscal and social policies.” Mindful that Europe’s identity crisis is unlikely to be settled anytime soon, the leaders of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia urged the European Union to “get back to basics” and focus on reinforcing basic freedoms and building a single market.
Other leaders shared Mr. Hollande’s impatience. The prime minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, said that Britain and Europe could be “married, or divorced, but not something between.” “Instead of endless theoretical debates on ‘more Europe’ or ‘less Europe’ we need to focus on ‘better Europe,’ the leaders of the four countries, all formerly communist, said in a statement on Tuesday.
But Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, said the bloc should not obsess over the minutiae of Britain’s departure, but instead on the bloc’s future. What this “better Europe” — a popular slogan now used by politicians who agree on little else — would look like exactly is unclear. What is clear, however, is that skepticism over the purpose and merits of the European Union as it works now is on the rise across wide sections of the Continent.
“I think it’s utterly disappointing that, when we are faced with the biggest political crisis in the history of the European Union, what’s grabbing the headlines is the obscure Article 50,” he told reporters, referring to the treaty provision that details how a country can leave the bloc. A spring survey by the Pew Research Center found that while support for the bloc remains strong in Poland and Hungary, which have benefited greatly from infusions of funds from Brussels, just 27 percent of Greek, 38 percent of French and 47 percent of Spanish citizens hold a favorable view.
The major issue is “that this is a Europe that people are feeling increasingly estranged from and that it is in our duty that we take action,” he said. If a second country leaves, he said, “we can only blame it on ourselves.” Positive views of the European Union fell, often substantially, in five of the six countries surveyed by Pew in both 2015 and 2016. Even Germany, where strong support for the so-called European project had been an unwavering feature of postwar politics, euroskepticism is on the rise, with 48 percent of those polled saying they had an unfavorable view of the bloc.
Mr. Cameron, who plans to resign by October, arrived for what was almost certainly his final meeting at the European Council, telling reporters: “I’ll be explaining that Britain will be leaving the European Union, but I want that process to be as constructive as possible, and I hope the outcome can be as constructive as possible.” Speaking Monday as he arrived for the summit meeting, President François Hollande of France said the “situation today in the United Kingdom,” with political turmoil, a plunging currency and credit rating downgrades, should alert other Europeans of the need to stick together. “Many people today are asking the same question,” he said. “What do we do if confronted by the same choice” that British voters faced last Thursday.
Mr. Cameron was scheduled to dine with his counterparts Tuesday evening to discuss the aftershocks of the referendum, but will then return to London — leaving the other leaders to spend Wednesday reflecting on the bloc’s future. The Swedish prime minister, Stefan Lofven, said the first task was for “Britain to make up its mind” about its intentions. But he added that the bloc as a whole then needed to figure out a way to connect more with ordinary people.
At a special meeting of the European Parliament on Tuesday, Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive body, denounced the nature of the debate in Britain, where he has often been a punching bag for the tabloids. “We need to develop much more of a citizens’ union. We need to make much more clear that this is an organization for European citizens,” he said. Mr. Lofven, a Social Democrat, gave no clear picture of how this might be done, offering only an appeal for more jobs and better social services.
“I am accused of being undemocratic, as a faceless bureaucrat, as some kind of robot,” he said. “That’s the way I’m portrayed in the United Kingdom. I respect what the British people have said. But I think we’ve got to see some consequences. I don't think we should see any shadowboxing or cat-and-mouse games. We need to know — and this is pure common sense — that new relations are beginning with the United Kingdom.” The first and vital task facing leaders meeting in Brussels is the divorce settlement with Britain, which voted to quit but has so far stalled on formally starting the separation process. The question of when Britain will invoke Article 50, opening negotiations, has dominated discussion in London and some other capitals, but has left some leaders cold.
He said there would be no “secret negotiations” with British officials, urged Britain to clarify its intentions, and cautioned anti-European parties throughout the Continent against celebration. “I think it’s utterly disappointing that, when we are faced with the biggest political crisis in the history of the European Union, what’s grabbing the headlines is the obscure Article 50,” Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, told reporters in Brussels. The far more important issue, he said, is “that this is a Europe that people are feeling increasingly estranged from and that it is our duty that we take action.”
Mr. Juncker vowed that “the European dream will continue” and insisted that “this is not the time to turn inward.” Mr. Cameron, who has said he will step down by October, wants the divorce negotiations handled by his successor. This has infuriated many of his peers, though several leaders have taken the delay as a sign that Britain might, in the end, decide to stay in the European Union.
The European Parliament adopted a nonbinding resolution that asks Britain to set the clock ticking “as soon as possible” on the Article 50 process, which could lead to a withdrawal from the European Union in two years. (An earlier draft of the resolution had called on Britain to invoke the legal process “immediately.”) Asked on Monday how she would respond to such an about-face, President Dalia Grybauskaite of Lithuania beamed and said, “Welcome, welcome back!”
Before the vote, anti-European lawmakers gloated over the British referendum, saying that it was a deserved comeuppance for a European Union whose leaders they have described as elite and out-of-touch. A more widely held view is that, having voted to bolt, Britain needs to make a swift and clean break so as to contain the Brexit contagion and stop it spreading to other countries, notably France, where the far-right National Front has called for the country to hold its own referendum on whether to leave. Populist parties in Denmark and the Netherlands want to do the same.
“You as a political project are in denial,” said Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-European, anti-immigrant U.K. Independence Party and a longtime member of the European Parliament, citing the problems in the eurozone and the refugee crisis. “But the biggest problem you’ve got — and the reason, the main reason, the United Kingdom voted the way that it did — is that you have, by stealth, by deception, without ever telling the truth to the British or the rest of the peoples of Europe, you have imposed upon them a political union.” Even Ms. Merkel, who over the weekend warned against pushing Britain to leave hastily and said Europe should not be “nasty” toward Mr. Cameron, struck a tougher tone on Tuesday, shifting toward a position staked out earlier by France and others that Britain must pay a price for leaving as a deterrent to other nations tempted by populist promises.
He added personal insult to his critique. “Virtually none of you have done a proper job in your lives,” he said, as the groans and jeers continued. “Or worked in business or worked in trade or indeed ever created a job.”
“Isn’t it funny,” Mr. Farage said. “When I came here 17 years ago and said I wanted to lead a campaign to get Britain to leave the European Union, you all laughed at me. Well, you’re not laughing now.”
On a more sober note, Mr. Farage said he would “like to see a grown-up and sensible attitude to how we negotiate a different relationship” with the European Union.
He said there were strong reasons for the European Union to maintain ties to Britain after it leaves the bloc. “Between your countries and my country, we do an enormous amount of business in goods and services,” he told the European Parliament. “That trade is mutually beneficial to both us. That trade matters. If you were to decide to cut off your noses to spite your faces and to reject any idea of a sensible trade deal, the consequences would be far worse for you than it would be for us.”
As the chamber filled with murmurs of disapproval, Mr. Farage continued, “Even no deal is better for the United Kingdom than the current, rotten deal that we’ve got.”
Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing National Front in France and also a member of the European Parliament, joined Mr. Farage in deriding the bloc.
“The vote by our British friends in favor of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union is by far the most important historic event that our continent has witnessed since the fall of the Berlin Wall,” she said. “To those who never ceased to proclaim that the European Union was irreversible, the British people have provided a biting refutation. It is a resounding victory for democracy; it is a slap to the supporters of a European system that is increasingly based on fear, blackmail, and lies.”
She added: “The British people have just committed the ultimate sacrilege. They have shattered the chains that bound them to the European Union. To the European Union propagandists who are supposedly on the left, in the center or on the right, go ahead, put away your sulking faces, put away your furious speeches and rejoice instead for the liberation of the people.”
Though Mr. Farage and Ms. Le Pen got the most attention, a Scottish member of the European Parliament, Alyn Smith, received a standing ovation when he gave an impassioned speech noting that a majority of Scots voted to stay in the European Union.
“We will need cool heads and warm hearts, but please remember this: Scotland did not let you down,” Mr. Smith said, his voice rising. “Do not let Scotland down now.”
Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, planned to head to Brussels on Wednesday to explore options for keeping Scotland in the European Union, and on Tuesday asked the Scottish Parliament, meeting in Edinburgh, to endorse her negotiations.
“I want to be clear to Parliament that while I believe independence is the best option for Scotland — I don’t think that will come as a surprise to anyone — it is not my starting point in these discussions,” she said. “My starting point is to protect Scotland’s interests, to protect Scotland’s relationship with the E.U.”
For all the speeches, the legal process is in limbo for now. Mr. Cameron has refused to invoke Article 50, the formal mechanism for leaving the European Union, saying the specifics of when and how to do so should be left to his successor. His governing Conservative Party is about to embark on a fierce leadership contest that is supposed to yield a new party leader — and a new prime minister — by Sept. 2.
The opposition Labour Party was also in disarray, with lawmakers adopting a no-confidence vote in their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, on Tuesday afternoon. Mr. Cameron and Mr. Corbyn both supported remaining in the European Union, but Labour lawmakers said that Mr. Corbyn did not do nearly enough to make the case for staying. Mr. Corbyn has refused to step down from the helm of the Labour Party, and no clear replacement has emerged.