European union

Key parts of the post-Brexit treaty that provides for a fluid border between Gibraltar and Spain will come into provisional effect today. Running to over a thousand pages, the treaty took far longer to negotiate than the entire Brexit Withdrawal Agreement. It has still to be ratified by the House of Commons and the EU parliament. The treaty effectively makes Gibraltar part of the EU’s passport-free Schengen area. Both Spain and Gibraltar were anxious to avoid long waits at the border: the 15,000 Spaniards who cross every day are half of Gibraltar’s work force and they are also an estimated 25 percent of the wage earners in the adjacent region – one of the poorest parts of Spain.

It may not feel or sound like it but Keir Starmer is a born-again Brexiteer. His achievements in office may be nugatory, his search for a legacy tragicomic, but there are countless actions this government boasts of which simply would not have been possible if we had stayed in the EU. Earlier this year, Labour moved to protect our steel industry with a tariff package possible only because we have an independent trade policy. I was delighted this month when the minister in the Lords made it clear this was a Brexit benefit. Those same Brexit freedoms allowed the Chancellor last month to cut tariffs on more than 100 foodstuffs to ease the cost-of-living crisis.

In the decade since the vote to leave the European Union, arguably no issue has consumed more energy, column inches, political capital and careers than how to solve the problem of Northern Ireland. It was on that narrow, jagged border between North and South that the substantive skirmishes took place between the UK and EU on what their future relationship would look like. While Michel Barnier and Lord Frost arguing the toss over the finer points of agri-food regulation may lack the luster of the Battle of the Boyne or the romantic connotations of 1916, it was no less significant a moment in Northern Ireland’s history.

Ten years after the Brexit referendum, its long-term impact on British politics is evident. Not so evident is why this is the case. Every general election sees comparable debates. So too did the 1975 referendum on membership called by Harold Wilson. But none of these other elections has ever produced such an extreme and long-lasting reaction, or a concerted attempt to use both informal and formal methods – constitutional and legal – to block the result.

If I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off.  I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent decision to fine Elon Musk and his company X €120 million for “non-compliance with transparency obligations” has me nudging the minute hand closer to midnight. “Non-compliance with transparency obligations.” What do you reckon that means?

What’s really at stake in these trade deals? That is what we are slowly discovering as Donald Trump’s handshakes with America’s trading partners are turned into specific and detailed agreements. Today we are getting the details of one of the biggest deals struck so far: a trade agreement with the famously protectionist European Union, which agreed in principle to a deal back in July, with the caveat on both the US and EU side that taxes on key sectors were still up for discussion. Those discussions, it seems, have produced some details. Despite early threats that America would impose tariffs of 250 percent and 100 percent on EU imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors respectively, the headline duties for both have been reduced to 15 percent.

Henry Kissinger once complained: “Who do I call when I want to speak to Europe?” Today the answer would be Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s first female Prime Minister, who has emerged as the most important leader in the European Union. No Italian leader has filled this unofficial role before: it is usually reserved for the heads of the bloc’s two largest economies, Germany and France. Yet Meloni has capitalized on the weakness of their leadership. French President Emmanuel Macron may delude himself that he is Napoleon or Jupiter, but in reality he is the deeply unpopular head of a lame-duck government. To borrow a phrase from Donald Trump, he doesn’t “have the cards.” Meanwhile, Germany’s Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, heads up a flimsy coalition.