European Games

First off, a declaration. I am very much pro the EU, but not uncritically so. Even its most ardent supporters openly acknowledge that things are not perfect and a lot more needs to be done. For me, however, the EU is at its best when it protects EU citizens from their national governments. Without the EU, many bad laws would have been enacted by the British Government, particularly those that impacted on freedoms or our protections, particularly from large corporations. Examples such as the 90 days detention, the BT Phorm trials and the ongoing anti-competitive investigations by the EU into Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Google are prominent in my mind. So for all its faults, particularly in the way it operates and spends money, there are a lot of good things to say about what the EU does.

And so I now look at Cameron's speech on Europe which is still generating significant press coverage. My verdict is that there are some good principles in there. The Germans and the French do want the UK to get more involved, to push for beneficial change to the EU and to counter the perceived dominance of those two countries on most European issues. The UK is seen as a major player with a lot that it can bring to the table. However, I can only think that Cameron's strategy in pushing for this change is driven by political pressures, not by any realistic analysis of how best to go about bringing change and thus improving the EU. The European way of doing business is very much about obtaining consensus. Turning up from the beginning with a threat and a list of demands does not get things off to a good start!

My view is very much that Cameron (or any PM) should have simply signalled that the UK want to propose a number of changes which the UK feels is needed for itself, but would also benefit the EU as a whole. This could have been reinforced by a statement that the EU was becoming democratically tenuous in the UK (and other countries) and so it is critical that the UK government is able to demonstrate that the EU remains relevant and beneficial to the lives of UK voters. This is the sort of position that European leaders can understand and agree with. It is both a promise to be reasonable and a threat to challenge the democratic legitimacy of the EU if it cannot reform.

As for the issue of a referendum, Cameron is being as hypocritical as he accuses Alex Salmond and the SNP of being over the issue of Scottish independence. If you are going to have a seismic referendum, you should set the  date to be as short as decently possible only allowing enough time for a proper debate and not such a long period that it creates a whole load of planning and investment uncertainties. I am not saying that there should not be a referendum, but either it should be called quickly or Cameron should have left it as an unspoken threat for the EU to ponder over. That way, the UK has a strong hand in its negotiations, EU leaders can hardly be motivated to avoid the threat that a referendum brings if it is an inevitability. I fear, that the political pressure has over-ruled any common sense on this matter.

I know from my own work that being a leading member of  the EU brings significant benefits to the UK and I am going to share one example that illustrates this point. About five years ago I was dealing with a problem where working with the US was being problematic due to the way the Americans implemented their laws when co-operating with foreign governments. This issue was causing huge delays to work and creating a whole host of problems such as legal liabilities and delays to the UK. The UK had spent years trying to solve this problem, but to no avail as the Americans were not willing to change their position. My boss and I therefore approached our counterparts in the other five biggest countries within the EU to ask if they were having the same problems. Lo and behold they all replied that they were and so we set up several meetings to discuss it and to hammer out a strategy. We then invited the Americans to meet all six of us to discuss this problem which they willingly did. As a result, the Americans realised that they had a problem that needed fixing and so they went away and did so. For them, this was the ideal international co-operative scenario - the UK led the big European nations to clearly articulate the problem. Once the Americans proposed a solution, it could be agreed by the Europeans as a whole thus saving them from having to repeat the work for other countries and everyone went away happy.

Now of course, I can also give several examples of where working within the EU has not been so successful. But the example above illustrates why so many nations, both and and out of Europe want the UK to remain a leading member. It also shows how the UK is able to make itself more influential than if it tried to solve all these problems on its own. This is influence that political blustering and a UK only attitude cannot buy, it would be ludicrous to claim that giving it up would not have significant consequences. Is it worth what we pay the EU? That is a much harder question to answer, but what is clear is that the situation is far from black and white and the UK would be unlikely to be able to use the money saved to be able to protect its interests and influence world events as effectively as it does now.

Realpolitik

This story on the BBC about the Russians selling arms to Syria made me smile: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18642032

The Russians are canny political operators and yet their position on Syria is drawing widespread condemnation. They learnt a brutal form of politics during Soviet times and although their democracy may appear messy and corrupt at times (we can't claim any moral high ground here) they have learnt painful lessons about democratic politics, can afford good PR people and they know the art of political manipulation. I would speculate that the Russian government is actually playing a double game when it comes to Syria's arms. Syria is no doubt a milestone around their neck that they would be happy to do without, yet they must protect their interests. Realpolitik is much more of a driving force than human rights concerns and they stand to lose a lot more than most countries if Assad's government falls.

Their argument that they do not want terrorists taking control of Syria is a credible one. Their point about the Western nations practising double standards by arming the rebels in Syria and Libya is a hard hitting point. Yet there is also an unspoken, yet very strong economic case for their position, this is their arms export industry. Decimated following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has spent many years rebuilding it and competing on a very competitive international stage. It is a significant revenue earner as well a means of gaining political influence abroad. So why is it important to them to continue to supply Syria despite the international political issues that this creates?

I would argue that we should look further internationally for the answer, specifically Asia, Africa and Latin America. The arms export industry for  Russia and China is very strong in those defence markets that Western democracies are reluctant to get involved with. Where there is a civil war or a corrupt regime, Russian or Chinese arms are usually to be found. Their big selling point is that they do not ask questions about how their arms are used and while their arms are not as cutting edge as Western made arms, they are rugged, cheaper and work well. This is a huge market with not only a large amount of money involved, but also the ability to influence those countries sitting on untapped mineral wealth such as oil or rare metals. China is aggressively expanding its influence and so Russian defence companies must maintain their reputation as reliable suppliers to compete.

So what is Russia to do with those outstanding Syrian defence contracts? They don't want to reduce their international standing in the world, but they don't want to lose ground in their defence export market either. The answer could be to ship the goods as required, but then to find a way of stopping them from arriving. Enter stage left some cargo ships which get stopped and turned back in British waters because their insurance is refused. How did the insurance company find out about the arms on those ships? Were they informed by an intelligence agency and if so which one, Russian or Western? And why did the Russians ship these controversial goods through the North Sea rather than through the Black Sea where they were less likely to have been stopped? I can only speculate as I have no intimate knowledge of what happened, but it would not surprise me if the Russians deliberately sabotaged the shipping. They will still try and get the goods to Syria, but quite likely by then it will be too late for the arms to make any difference. In the meantime, the Russians maintain their reputation for sticking to their contracts. Who knows, maybe they will get lucky and manage to sell the same goods twice?

How very Machiavellian! How very Russian too with a nice bit of maskirovka.