FOR MANY Over the past decade, if you have asked a Eurocrat, “What do you think?”, The response has generally been dramatic. At the start of the decade, the euro was on the verge of collapse. In the middle, Greece almost got kicked out. A crisis erupted when nearly 3 million asylum seekers arrived from Syria and other hotspots. Shortly after, Britain and then the EUThe country’s second largest economy, voted to leave without a serious plan to do so. Meanwhile, populists from all walks of life itched to overturn the comfortable order that those in Brussels were trying to build. In short, life in Brussels was fascinating. For years, the authorities treated the city like a visit to a proctologist: necessary but unpleasant. Suddenly, the EUDe facto capital has become like a political roller coaster – terrifying, but strangely exciting too.
Those days are over. Brussels has become bleak and reassuring again. Ask a passing eurocrat what’s going on and the answer is prosaic: bargain EUFrom the budget. When EU the next visit to Brussels on February 20 will be to discuss the expenses of the bloc. Britain’s departure left 60 billion hole EUFinancing. Spread over seven years and between 27 countries, the sum becomes easier to swallow. The bottom line is that, to keep spending roughly the same, EU countries are asked to expel between 1% and 1.1% of gross national income – only one more mustache than last year.
To spice things up, diplomats at both ends of the debate behave as if a 0.1% gap in income – the equivalent of a cold spell in winter or a few wet weeks in summer – is a tax cut from Mariana. A fierce gang made up of the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Austria demanded that the EU spend no more than 1% of its members GNI. Another group, led by the countries of central and eastern Europe who stuff themselves with gifts from Brussels, refuses to sign anything as paltry as a 1% budget. “They want the box to open!” desperate a tight-lipped diplomat. Without an agreement in sight, the leaders of 27 member states will spend at least two days arguing over a pitiful amount of money, like monks punching the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.
Charles Michel, whose mission is to chair the meeting as President of the European Council, threatened to continue negotiations until they are resolved. Unfortunately, no one believes it. At a peak at the height of the Greek crisis, Donald Tusk forced the leaders to stay and conclude a bailout deal instead of risking Greece to withdraw from the bloc. This time, the heads of government are well aware that they can just come back in a few months and try again. Politics often take time. In his previous life, Mr. Michel was a Belgian Prime Minister. Negotiations to get him the job took 138 days.
Such pettiness could be considered EU at worst. Rather than dealing with big state affairs, EU leaders will waste their time fighting to change pockets. The tax fight is an almost perfect example of Sayre’s law, named after Wallace Stanley Sayre, an American political scientist: “In any dispute, the intensity of sentiment is inversely proportional to the value of the problems at stake.” If the net contributors are routed and go every turn, the budget will represent about 1% of gross national income. If the Frugal Four come out triumphant, the budget will represent around 1% of gross national income.
But there is a more positive way of looking at it. A boost in internal stability means that EU has space to sweat the little things. Chance, a shantytown of economic policy implemented during the financial crisis has proven to be relatively solid. The meetings of the Eurogroup, the club of finance ministers that once dictated the fate of nations, are now as dramatic as a meeting with the finance ministers of Finland and Luxembourg should be. The measures taken during the migration crisis to stem the number of people entering Europe, such as throwing money at Turkey and turning the Greek islands into de facto prison camps for migrants, were horrible but effective. EU officials now, perhaps with too much confidence, have no idea of a repeat of the 2015-2016 migration crisis. Brexit, once considered a schism in the Western alliance and the first raindrops from a populist storm, is now an arid debate on the trivialities of data transfers, the equivalence of financial rules and fish. Boredom surely beats the crisis.
Dull is dandy
No legislative big bang is expected from the European Commission. the EU no longer tears up its treaties, the basic rules of the bloc, every five years or so as in the early 1990s, leaving voters bewildered or angry. These major projects are now the preserve of a few federalists in the European Parliament and no longer the almost universal mission of the continent’s elite. Rather than a bold new frontier, projects such as the Commission’s “green deal” – a glut of green laws expected in early March – EU work as it should, develop collective policies to deal with a collective problem.
The emphasis on the most mundane aspects of the existence of the bloc comes in EUThe problems are reversed. For years, the EUIndia’s most pressing problems were internal, from the collapse of its currency to its half-cooked migration strategy. The cry of alarm came from inside the house. Now the threats are external. A ring of instability surrounds the EU, from Russia to Africa via Turkey. It even now includes Great Britain, given its geopolitical mid-life crisis. While the national capitals jealously guard their foreign policies, those of Brussels are only feasted on political scraps, rather than the main course. Plans to “make Europe even more beautiful” are thin on the ground. Instead, the Eurocrats are happy to have made Europe boring again. Better a fight on the budget than on something more substantial. As the past decade has more than demonstrated, the excitement is overestimated. And he can still come back roaring. The problems of the 2010s may have simmered, but they have not been resolved. Enjoy boredom while it lasts. ■
This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the title “Making Europe boring again”
