When the euro was launched in 1999, the British were constantly being warned that if they refused to join the European single currency, they would eventually find themselves marginalised within the European Union. The Brits scoffed at this notion. But it seems to be true. A desperate deal to extricate the euro-zone from the Greek crisis is currently being hammered out, a few floors above where I’m sitting, here in the gloomy Justus Lipsius building in Brussels. But the British are essentially irrelevant to the negotiations. And happy to be.
Gordon Brown, still our prime minister, was on my train to Brussels this afternoon. (He was sitting in the next door carriage, guarded by some burly looking security men.) The train only got in a little after 4pm, by which time the French and German leaders had already hammered out the basics of the deal in Brussels. The agreement looks like a classic bit of euro-fudge – there might be loans to Greece, with Europe taking the lead and the IMF serving as back-up. Or possibly, the other way around. The text will be revised further this evening at a special meeting just for the 16 countries that are members of the euro-zone. By this time the other eleven EU countries – including the British – will have been ushered out of the room.
A few years ago, the British would have been horrified at the idea that crucial decisions were being made, while UK leaders cooled their heels outside the room. But the euro-zone looks like such a mess, that instead the Brits are quietly congratulating themselves at their decision to stay out. And sometimes not so quietly. One European journalist I spoke to, described the British briefings on the euro-crisis as “revoltingly smug”.
As for me, I’m finding it rather odd to be back in Brussels and back at a European Union summit, almost five years after I left the city. It’s a bit like returning to your old school. I recognise a few faces among the journalists and the officials. We wave at each other across the room – or exchange warm greetings, which quickly tail off, after the “so how are yous?” But I no longer have any close feel for how this place works. (I hope that’s not a fatal confession for a journalist.) And the issues and dramas that seemed so absorbing a few years ago, no longer seem quite so compelling.
That is odd, in a way, since many of the debates that I followed very closely are now working themselves out in unexpected ways. Some people even reckon that this is the beginnings of a terminal crisis for the euro-zone – and that the future of the EU itself might even come into question.
But somehow it doesn’t feel like that tonight. My guess is that they will all still be meeting here in the Justus Lipsius in ten year’s time – stumbling from one baffling crisis to another.
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