The Guardian: Britons don’t grasp the EU’s essential motivation – a quest for the quiet life

Advertisement Europe’s quest for the quiet life goes much further. The EU and most of its states were born or reborn from the rubble of war and the traumas of totalitarianism. Britons forget how deeply that affects their instincts. History is dense, present, complicated and inescapable on the mainland in a way that it is not in Britain. The pavements of German cities are studded with brass plaques bearing the names and dates of those deported to the death camps, planted outside the addresses where they once lived. Memories of flight, destruction and oppression – the 3am rap at the door, the rumble of military trucks on cobbles, the squelch of carts laden with possessions on muddy tracks – live on in continental families in a way that they do in comparatively few British ones.[...]

The EU’s unofficial mission is to protect this comfortable, once-traumatised European garden from outside threats. When Helmut Kohl confronted sceptics in his Christian Democrat Union with the case for the euro, notes Alexander Clarkson of King’s College London, he did so primarily not with talk of peace but talk of preserving the European way of life. Today the EU is most effective when it shields its citizens from over-mighty technology firms, negotiates trade deals in a world where its population is proportionately smaller every year, and ventures tentative steps towards common defence forces independent from those of Donald Trump’s America. It lures its neighbours not with soaring rhetoric but with the promise of the quiet life for their citizens. Macedonia’s recent decision to change its name, ending a dispute with Greece and launching itself on the track to EU membership, was ultimately motivated by the desire to join the sheltered European garden.[...]

A tour of European capitals illustrates this truth. The Dutch may sympathise with the Brits but their prime minister also uses Britain as a cautionary tale of a country whose citizens have lost their appetite for “a good life for themselves and those around them”. Poles may want to bend the rules of the Irish backstop to preserve the quiet life for their immigrant compatriots in Britain but only so far, for Warsaw knows the pain of European fragmentation better than most. Athens and Brussels dislike each other but remain committed to Greek membership of the EU because both fear a destabilising rupture. Macron may rail against Brexit but his real target is Marine Le Pen. Germans may be torn between seeking to stop Brexit by backing a second referendum and managing a messy British exit to get it over with but, like their fellow Europeans, their utmost concern is stability.

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Politico: Why Europe still needs Merkel

Just as for Germany, Merkel’s departure would mark a watershed for the EU. No leader has dominated European affairs to the extent she has over the past 13 years for at least a generation, if not longer. Others may have built Europe, but it was Merkel who had the arguably more difficult task of holding it together. Whatever mistakes she made in handling the eurocrisis or migration, her moniker as the “Queen of Europe” is only half in jest.[...]

“She commands respect, even from those who disagree with her,” said one veteran center-right prime minister who has observed Merkel at innumerable summits over the years. “There’s a different atmosphere in the room when she’s not there. Once she’s gone, [Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orbán takes over.”[...]

Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, another critic of Merkel’s approach to migration, expressed a similar sentiment. “For us it is crucial that she will stay as German [chancellor] for next three years,” he said. “Germany is our most important economic partner and the chancellor herself deserves credit for being a reliable friend of the Czech Republic.”[...]

When it comes to more fundamental, longer-term questions, though, such as how to handle Central Europe’s increasingly illiberal governments or reforming the eurozone, the outlook is less clear. Poland’s endorsement for Merkel notwithstanding, Warsaw has every incentive now to play for time and see what emerges — especially if Merkel hardens her tone on the controversial question of the ruling Law and Justice party’s judicial reforms.

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Politico: Brussels’ battle to tame Visegrad rebels

With countries in Central Europe facing the possibility of substantial cuts to their allotment of development funding in the EU’s next seven-year budget, the Commission has made it clear to leaders in both Prague and Bratislava that it’s not in their interest to lock arms with Poland’s de facto leader Jarosław Kaczyński or Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. [...]

But others from the region were cautious about advocating the alternative — an “intergovernmental” approach to EU decision-making that they fear would leave large countries such as Germany and France with even more influence. [...]

The main issue that continues to bind the Visegrad countries is migration, with all opposing quotas and other proposals that would compel them to accept significant numbers of refugees. Yet here, they are also supported by a host of other EU countries, including several from the south, confounding the Commission’s effort to forge a compromise to reform the current system.  [...]

Both Bratislava and Prague face their own challenges with populism and political corruption, but their political interests increasingly converge more with Germany and Austria, with which their economies are already closely intertwined, than with their former Warsaw Pact neighbors. That’s particularly true of Slovakia, which is the only country in the region that belongs to the euro. If the pair’s economies continue on the current trajectory, both are likely to join the ranks of the EU’s net payers during the bloc’s next long-term budget cycle. 

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